full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Daniel Engber: How the progress bar keeps you sane

Unscramble the Blue Letters


[Progress...]

But once you start thinking about the progress bar as something that's more about dulling the pain of waiting, well, then you can start fiddling around with the pslgohocyy.

So if you have a peosrrgs bar that just moves at a constant rate — let's say, that's really what's happening in the computer — that will feel to ppleoe like it's slowing down. We get bored. Well, now you can start trying to enhance it and make it appear to move more qliucky than it really is, make it move faster at the beginning, like a burst of speed. That's exciting, people feel like, "Oh! Something's really happening!" Then you can move back into a more niatairlsutc gwroth of the progress bar as you go along. You're aimsusng that people are focusing on the passage of time — they're trying to watch grass grow, they're trying to watch a pot of water, waiting for it to boil, and you're just trying to make that less boring, less painful and less frustrating than it was before.

Open Cloze


[Progress...]

But once you start thinking about the progress bar as something that's more about dulling the pain of waiting, well, then you can start fiddling around with the __________.

So if you have a ________ bar that just moves at a constant rate — let's say, that's really what's happening in the computer — that will feel to ______ like it's slowing down. We get bored. Well, now you can start trying to enhance it and make it appear to move more _______ than it really is, make it move faster at the beginning, like a burst of speed. That's exciting, people feel like, "Oh! Something's really happening!" Then you can move back into a more ____________ ______ of the progress bar as you go along. You're ________ that people are focusing on the passage of time — they're trying to watch grass grow, they're trying to watch a pot of water, waiting for it to boil, and you're just trying to make that less boring, less painful and less frustrating than it was before.

Solution


  1. progress
  2. people
  3. growth
  4. quickly
  5. psychology
  6. assuming
  7. naturalistic

Original Text


[Progress...]

But once you start thinking about the progress bar as something that's more about dulling the pain of waiting, well, then you can start fiddling around with the psychology.

So if you have a progress bar that just moves at a constant rate — let's say, that's really what's happening in the computer — that will feel to people like it's slowing down. We get bored. Well, now you can start trying to enhance it and make it appear to move more quickly than it really is, make it move faster at the beginning, like a burst of speed. That's exciting, people feel like, "Oh! Something's really happening!" Then you can move back into a more naturalistic growth of the progress bar as you go along. You're assuming that people are focusing on the passage of time — they're trying to watch grass grow, they're trying to watch a pot of water, waiting for it to boil, and you're just trying to make that less boring, less painful and less frustrating than it was before.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
progress bar 6
horizontal bar 2
people feel 2


Important Words


  1. assuming
  2. bar
  3. beginning
  4. boil
  5. bored
  6. boring
  7. burst
  8. computer
  9. constant
  10. dulling
  11. enhance
  12. exciting
  13. faster
  14. feel
  15. fiddling
  16. focusing
  17. frustrating
  18. grass
  19. grow
  20. growth
  21. happening
  22. move
  23. moves
  24. naturalistic
  25. pain
  26. painful
  27. passage
  28. people
  29. pot
  30. progress
  31. psychology
  32. quickly
  33. rate
  34. slowing
  35. speed
  36. start
  37. thinking
  38. time
  39. waiting
  40. watch
  41. water