Progress, Not Regress

Before 1985, you’d have had no idea how long it would take to install a program on
your computer—or to save a file, or to complete an online form. (To be fair, there were
no online forms.) Consider the history of the progress bar, then discuss with your
team: what other activities and interactions in life would benefit from a progress bar?
Bars are not the only way to pass time. Explore the following alternatives to the
standard progress bar, then discuss with your team: what are the advantages and
disadvantages of each approach?
- indeterminate progress bar | splash screen | console output | skeleton screen |
  throbber
Some progress bars continue to inch along even when a process is actually stuck; the
idea is to encourage people not to give up. Explore the idea of placebo buttons—
such as the “close door” buttons on elevators that almost never close the doors, or
pedestrian crossing buttons that don’t have any impact on traffic lights—then discuss
with your team: when, if ever, is it okay to mislead people so that they feel better about
a process?
Some schemes can be quite elaborate. For instance, one airport discovered that,
if planes parked further away so that people had to walk longer to baggage claim,
they complained less about waiting for their bags once they got there. They were
happier moving along than idling at the carousel, even if the total wait time was the
same. Can you think of other situations in which people could be tricked into feeling
less impatient?
Designers have discovered that progress bars in apps make users more likely to
complete tasks such as surveys and applications. Discuss with your team: is it okay
to design interfaces that persuade people to complete actions? Is there a point past
which nudging becomes manipulation?
In 1994, the developers of Namco’s Ridge Racer added an Easter egg to their
loading screens—a version of the studio’s classic Galaxian game. Google Chrome
does something similar: its Dinosaur Game appears when your device goes offline
temporarily. In the real world, some restaurants now encourage diners to play games
on table-mounted payment terminals (for a fee) while waiting for their food. Discuss
with your team: should more processes come with these kinds of “auxiliary games”
to help people pass the time?
You can’t know if you’re there yet without some way to measure progress; the same
is true for entire societies. Learn about the following socioeconomic indicators with
your team: what do they try to measure? Then look up the numbers corresponding
to your country and discuss with your team: how accurately do they reflect what it’s
like to live there? And how should we decide what the end—or goal—of a society is?
- Gross Domestic Product | Gross National Income | Gini Coefficient
- Human Development Index | Multidimensional Poverty Index | Labor Productivity
- Happiness Index | Passport Index | Big Mac Index
The Second Law of Thermodynamics suggests that closed systems always grow
more disordered over time. Left to themselves, things get messier: your room won’t
clean itself. Yet many people take for granted that the world as a whole should
become better over time. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward
justice,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., a quote that may have preceded and certainly
outlived him. But it turns out that this idea that the world improves over time may be
a relatively new one. Discuss with your team: is the world growing better? Be sure
to check out the artist Will Crawford’s answer to this question in this 1909 painting.
What would a painting with the same title look like today?