Communicate to the users

January 27, 2021

I know I am not the first developer to say this, but yet here I go. Developers, you NEED to communicate to your users. Don't EVER make them guess what is going on. eg: The hourglass or endless spinning circle. What is happening? When will it end?

See, the problem is that because the developer wrote the code there is often an assumption that it is self explainitory. It is not.

For example here is a Unity dialog:

Because VR applications are HUGE I am forced to look at this dialog for hours, and that is not an exageration. So what's specifically wrong with this dialog?

Cannot see which file is currently being worked on. Answer: Truncate the middle of the file path, as has been the norm for DECADES.
Lack of info on how much longer this process will take. In this dialog it shows how long it has been going, but not how much time left until completed. Note: Because of time to move or upgrade files it is often difficult to accurately estimate the time remaining. See the Windows file copy dialog for an example of this(1 min, no, now it's 30 minutes, oops, now it's 30 seconds) So I get that issue, still it can be a value to try. Answer: At the VERY least show: "File x of y" so the user knows how many files or processes left to complete.
Title bar info is too vague. Importing what? Yes I SHOULD know because I selected to import a file/asset... and what is "iteration 2", did it fail the first time? Are there multiple iterations? How many? Too many questions left unanswered.
There is no Cancel button. Once the user selects the process there is no going back. While I understand that a partially completed process, or the need to revert the completed items is an issue, not allowing the user the choice is almost always unacceptable.

Users should not have to guess what is happening and should also not have to spend ANY time on Google/application site attempting to figure out what is happening. Tell them, be explicit. Yes, some users will be annoyed because they know what is happening... the thing is, they will know because you told them.