Re: Word-a-Day: progress bar, progress indicator

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Sat, 2008-04-26 at 14:01 +0100, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> On Apr 25, 2008, at 6:23 PM, Shaun McCance wrote:
> >
> > ============================================================
> > progress bar
> > A control that shows the progress of a task being carried out by an 
> > application.  Only use the word "progress bar" for vertical or 
> > horizontal bars that fill linearly.  Do not use "progress bar" for any 
> > control that does not show the progress of a task, even if the control 
> > looks like a progress bar; use "progress indicator" instead.
> 
> As written, that could be misinterpreted as saying you should use 
> "progress indicator" to refer to bars representing quantities other 
> than progress, such as search relevance or disk fullness.

Indeed.  And that raises the question of what to call
those sorts of things.  Perhaps "indicator" is a good
word after all, because it's easy to combine it with
other nouns, as in "relevance indicator" and "fullness
indicator".  Using "bar" with those sounds weird.

> > Interestingly, both Apple and Microsoft recommend using only "progress 
> > indicator".  But I don't think "progress bar" is likely to confuse 
> > users, and changing our current usage would be difficult.  Honestly, 
> > before looking at their recommendations, I wouldn't have ever thought 
> > to avoid the word "progress bar".  Thoughts?
> 
> Agreed, but it should be *extremely* rare for help text to even mention 
> progress bars, so this is mostly moot.

The terminology recommendations are not just for documentation.

> > Note that I've explicitly allowed vertical progress bars, whereas 
> > Apple explicitly mentions filling left to right. I was mostly thinking 
> > of the thing used as the window icon on Nautilus progress windows.  If 
> > I were writing about it, I think I would write something like:
> >
> >   The progress window uses a progress bar as its window
> >   icon, so you can easily see the progress by glancing
> >   at your task bar.
> >
> > Maybe I'd throw in the word "vertical" for good measure.
> 
> That window icon is square. I don't think a bar can be square.

The mathematician in me disagrees.  Although I suppose
most normal people don't think of squares ⊂ rectangles.
On the other hand, is it worth using yet another word?
On the other other hand, that sure sounds like a good
argument for calling everything progress indicators.

> > I'd like to solicit ideas on two related types of controls.
> >
> > First, what about pie-filling progress indicators?  They clearly show 
> > actual progress, but they aren't bars.  Do we have a word for these 
> > things?
> 
> "Indicator" or "disc" would be sufficient, I think. For example: "If 
> there is a disc to the right of an e-mail account, it shows Evolution's 
> progress in downloading or synchronizing messages in that account."

That gets us into the "disk vs disc" debate.  The shape
tends to be spelled "disk", at least by mathematicians.
Of course, what you actually see is a circular sector,
not an entire disk.

I'm curious how real users would respond to the term
"progress disk".

> > Second, what about countdown controls?  They basically look like 
> > progress bars (or sometimes "progress pies"), but the control moves 
> > backward.  They aren't showing progress.  Usually, they're showing a 
> > timeout.
> > ...
> 
> I think the appropriate term for those is "utter crack".

Which part is crack?  The fact that there's a timeout,
or the fact that there's a graphical depiction of it?
If you're going to have a timeout, I think a graphical
depiction is helpful.  And I can think of lots of places
where it's necessary or useful.

--
Shaun