Online Observations

Google has Microsoft’s flaw

For years, I have had one complaint with Microsoft Windows. And that is the fact that the progress bars in Windows never show the right status. The amount of progress shown on the bar is never an indicator of the amount of time remaining versus amount of time taken so far. Ideally, equal amounts of length on the progress bar should represent equal amounts of time.

Google, it seems, can’t crack this either.

Google did a good thing by making some changes to the Gmail. Mainly it improved overall speed and added a new loading page with a progress bar. However, this progress bar has the same flaw as the ones in Windows do. It doesn’t show the right progress. Take a look at the image below:

gmail fast

The progress bar in the image shows that the process of loading is nearly complete.

It takes a split-second for the progress indicator to reach that level when I load my Gmail. It’s so fast, that despite several tries, I couldn’t get a screen shot of it while it was half way.

However, once it reaches this level, it pauses for more than a second. So, even this progress bar is actually not a true indicator of where the progress of the process stands in terms of time. This is the same problem as that of Microsoft Windows’ progress bars.

Note: I do realize that this is trivial and it is hard to make this work in an ideal way. But still. Also, yes, I realize that the title of this article is a little sensational.

May 19th, 2008 Posted in Comparisons, Google, Microsoft

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Comparisons, Google, Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Google has Microsoft’s flaw”

Effi Says:

May 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 pm

I am no lover of Microsoft - and I will ALWAYS jump at any chance to blame them for anything I can …but this is NOT Microsoft’s flaw. A progress bar on any system (Mac, Unix, Linux, Windows, et al) always shows time remaining based on the loading speed at that very moment, if that loading speed were to remain constant. As loading speed does not remain constant, but rather constantly fluctuates due to a whole range of factors, the time remaining that shows in the progress bar fluctuates along with it.

The “flaw” is in thinking that the progress bar measures actual load time, rather than potential load time based on current speed.

Hope this helps.
The Observer Says:

May 22nd, 2008 at 4:49 pm

@Effi, I understand this…. on Windows, the problem is not just with Loading progress bars, I think the one that gets most flak is file transfer progress bars (when you move or copy files)

And it is a usability issue really. Because a progress bar that zooms to the end and then gets stuck is immensely irritating to a user.

Maybe one that shows steps is better….
Oli Says:

May 22nd, 2008 at 7:20 pm

Though I agree that it is frustrating, one has to consider how this bar loads and what causes it to load.
In the case of Gmail, it probably loads a fraction each time a particular request has been completed. The way the requests are handled (AJAX) is both dependent on the server and the browser. If the last request is taking the longest, then that last bit of the bar will take longer.
We should see the lenghts of progress bars as discrete jumps that announce that a particular action has been completed.
Have you seen differences in loading between Firefox and Explorer? If that’s the case then it could be the difference between the way Explorer’s ActiveX Object manages the request.
Still, in my opinion, this sort of loading bar is better than no bar at all.
The Observer Says:

May 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 pm

@Oli, i totally agree that it is a huge usability improvement, but I always though of Google as very classy, and I would have ‘expected’ them to come up with something better…. I guess, it’s one of those things….

The behavior is consistent in both FF and IE. And the bar loads much more consistently when I clear offline files (so I think it’s got to do with some caching issues as well)…
Anton Says:

May 23rd, 2008 at 5:56 am

Progress bars, for that very reason, are inherently flawed. The “behind-the-scenes” computation is not something that can be easily measured. It’s not something we should want to measure either, at least not in a continuous sense.

Several progress bars have adopted the “milestone” approach which advances the bar to a pre-specified percentage at key points in the computation. It’s not a clean architecture, but it’s a workable solution.

My personal preference is for a simple loading animation (i.e. http://www.smh.com.au/images/gmaps/loading.gif). All I’m really interested in, after all, is something to keep my attention and let me know that the page isn’t frozen.

…which Google’s loading bar does.
The Observer Says:

May 23rd, 2008 at 11:43 am

@Anton, yes… but a simple loading gif doesn’t mean that the page is not frozen.

My personal preference would be to have some kind of text which changes (indicating various steps, even if unreal)… I remember that good old Sim City used to have status messages such as “Reticulating Spines” when it was loading up…

Usability is where it’s at, right?