Current bugbears

[Perry E. Metzger]

Kero van Gelder <kero at chello.nl> writes:
> Contrary to popular believe, twirling icons do not
> say _anything_ about progress on a properly multitasking OS.
>
> Also contrary to popular believe, progress bars do not show
> progress in any meaningful way.

The function of such things is not to help people like you and me. It
is to satisfy ordinary users who feel better when they have an
indication of how long they will have to wait. There is a lot of field
evidence that such indicators make ordinary users much happier.

In theory, one doesn't need any of the niceties of modern
UIs. Shadows, color, nice icons, progress meters and all the other
trappings are in some sense a "waste of CPU" -- but the truth is, they
make the system much more usable for non-technical users.

Perry