- From: Afternoon <afternoon@uk2.net>
- Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 18:34:45 +0000
Submission progress
-------------------
Not sure if this would come under Web Controls or Web Forms, suspect
the former.
Modern browsers feature useful rich interfaces for monitoring the
progress of file downloads, but are not symmetrical, uploads are second
class citizens.
The browser UI should be extended so that similar information is
provided while transmitting large requests:
* Total size of data to be transmitted
* Percentage/amount of data sent so far, preferably with graphical
status bar
* Estimated time remaining
* Average rate of data transmission
Etc. The exact selection of information displayed would be
implementation defined.
This information should be displayed in a modal popup window, as the
browser window or tab is locked during submission.
The popup should only appear for form submissions where the total
quantity of data to be uploaded exceeds some relatively small
threshold, e.g. 1mb. This should be implementation defined.
Benefits:
Many application types would benefit from this ability:
* Webmail applications would be able to give the user an estimated
time until mail attachments are uploaded to the server
* Photo galleries often involve the uploading of many files at
once, potentially running to hundreds of megabytes
* Use of web-based groupware applications by less web-savvy users
is sometimes mandated in larger organisations, these users
require greater interface support
The key benefit, achieved across all application types, is to eliminate
upload fear. Users do not commonly understand upload times and rates
and thus often do not understand that a form submission is in progress
but not yet complete when they attach large files to a request.
Browsers currently offer _no feedback whatsoever_ regarding large form
upload times, which is appallingly bad interface design. The status
window would provide a feedback mechanism to the user, managing their
expectations about how long the submission will take. This increases
users' trust of web-based applications and improves usability greatly.
In addition, the option to cancel a submission could be added, allowing
the user to return to the completed form, so that they can reduce the
size of the attached data. Another option would be to produce an
earlier popup that informs the user of the quantity of data they are
uploading (this could also be displayed by a file control) and check
that they wish to begin. This would not be a complete solution, but
could be a useful addition to the above solution.
Ben
((Ben Godfrey) (Software) (see "http://www.cohack.com/?src=eval"))
Received on Sunday, 7 November 2004 10:34:45 UTC