Re: [Usability] Progress Bars

[Damian Haase <damian blinkingman com>]

On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 15:13:28 +0200, Diego Moya <turingt gmail com> wrote:

> The Firefox download manager is another example of multiple progress
> bars, and here there isn't a global progress. The common theme where
> multiple progress bars seems to be legitimate is when there are
> several independent processes.
Actually, Firefox does have a global progress indicator (though not a meter, per se). When downloading multiple files, the window title shows the overall progress in the format: "10% of 3 files". The downloads are equivalent processes, so it makes sense to do a roll-up of the progress of each. And in the case of Firefox downloads, each of them is independently initiated by the user, so therefore the defense could be made that individual progress of each is more meaningful than an overall progress. I'm not sure that I wholly believe that yet... the thought just occurred to me.

In cases where two or more non-equivalent processes are being measured, this obviously doesn't work. Bittorrent is an example of this: download is happening at the same time as upload(s). 

- Damian