IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/igg/jthi00/v10y2014i3p58-71.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

IT Progress Indicators: Sense of Progress, Subjective Sense of Time, User Preference and the Perception of Process Duration

Author

Listed:
  • T. S. Amer

    (The W. A. Franke College of Business, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA)

  • Todd L. Johnson

    (The W. A. Franke College of Business, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA)

Abstract

Users of information technology (IT) often encounter “progress indicators” during their interactions. These graphics (e.g., progress bars) appear on computing screens as users wait for a task to complete. The purpose of progress indicators is to inform users of the progress being made to complete a task. This study employs two theoretical models from psychological research on human waiting to develop specific hypotheses related to the design of progress indicators: the sense-of-progress and the subjective-sense-of-time frameworks. The results of three experiments indicate that progress indicators exhibiting key characteristics from these frameworks influence user experiences. Experiment 1 revealed that participants preferred a linear progress bar to a cycling progress bar. Experiment 2 revealed that participants preferred a video progress indicator to a cycling progress bar, and judged the process duration to be shorter with the video progress indicator. Experiment 3 revealed that the video progress indicator yielded the best user experience.

Suggested Citation

  • T. S. Amer & Todd L. Johnson, 2014. "IT Progress Indicators: Sense of Progress, Subjective Sense of Time, User Preference and the Perception of Process Duration," International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction (IJTHI), IGI Global, vol. 10(3), pages 58-71, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:igg:jthi00:v:10:y:2014:i:3:p:58-71
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018/ijthi.2014070105
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:igg:jthi00:v:10:y:2014:i:3:p:58-71. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journal Editor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.igi-global.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.