How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

Once upon a time slow connections begat the Progress Bar - bloated sites would taunt us with ‘15% loaded’ screens. High-speed promised to kill the beast and free us from their tyranny but yet it lives! Progress bars are being used MORE lately to direct user actions. Look to Farmville and LinkedIn which push their users to collect 100% of their personal information. Incomplete progress bars are an itch that needs to be scratched. They carry the implicit language that declares ‘You are here’ but more importantly ‘The end is in sight’. Game design motivates us through incremental, measurable progress towards a tangible goal but is this the way real life works? Is the progress bar’s ubiquity in technology starting to affect the way we measure progress in meatspace? This panel will reach far across time and space to look at the story of progress bars, why they hypnotize us and what we need to do - slay the beast once and for all, or throw ourselves into its partially-complete embrace…

Also huffduffed as…

  1. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by adewale on May 15th, 2011

  2. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by briansuda on May 16th, 2011

  3. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by brokenbottleboy on May 16th, 2011

  4. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by jaronbarends on May 13th, 2011

  5. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by sechilds on May 13th, 2011

  6. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by KurtL on May 18th, 2011

  7. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by markhulme on May 17th, 2011

  8. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by jcardinal on May 26th, 2011

  9. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by macjustice on May 20th, 2011

  10. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by assaf on May 20th, 2011

  11. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by nielsk on May 21st, 2011

  12. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by cbirdsong on May 23rd, 2011

  13. How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live

    —Huffduffed by erichian on June 1st, 2011

Possibly related…

  1. Jeffrey Zeldman’s Awesome Internet Design Panel

    He brought us The Web Standards Project, A List Apart, Designing With Web Standards, A Book Apart, and so much more. Now legendary blogger, designer, and creative gadfly Jeffrey Zeldman brings us a SXSW panel. There will be discussion. There will be special guests. Quotable insights will fly faster than your fingers can peck them into Twitterific. Combustible wit will fill the room. And in the end, we’ll all be a little wiser than we were.

    —Huffduffed by procload 2 years ago

  2. Live ‘end of season one’ show « Boagworld

    At this years SXSW Interactive, Paul Boag, Marcus Lillington, Rob Borely and Steve Krug recorded a live episode of the Boagworld show to celebrate the end of season one ‘Building websites for return on investment’.

    http://boagworld.com/season/1/episode/7/

    —Huffduffed by portenkirchner 2 years ago

  3. How To Save College Radio (SXSW 2011)

    "How To Save College Radio" provided a timely look at how some universities are selling their radio frequencies used by student-staffed stations. Joey Yang from KTRU and Kenya Lewis and Dorothy Kidd from KUSF detailed the stories from the stations’ experience. Susan Harmon of Public Radio Capital offered a financial perspective about these deals. Ken Freedman, station manager of WFMU, moderated the session and offered direct advice for all college stations whose frequencies aren’t safe.

    —Huffduffed by melorama 2 years ago