Interface Usability
by Merien Q. Kunst

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Progress Indicators: What’s Going On?

This topic is easily dealt with. It comes down to this: even though loading bars aren’t a pleasant sight to look at (a funny or informational preloader is much better), some movies give no indication what’s happening during download. "Are we there yet?" For modem users, this can be especially frustrating, because there is no way of knowing whether the movie has ended, or the connection was lost, or the last bit is being loaded in the background. (A blank or frozen screen is not very entertaining either.) Progress bars are not the most aesthetic solution, if they are designed properly, they’ll at least provide clarity about loading time. Many good tutorials can be found online to help you create a reliable progress indicator.

Obviously, the best loading scheme is one that goes unnoticed. But for heftier movies (or really slow connections) a loading scheme and a progress indicator are needed. A great solution is a small game or animation that also indicates progress (percentage). In case you’re wondering, yes, Pong has been done, just like Memory, Simon Says and Tic-Tac-Toe. But you just can’t beat the classics!

Flash offers reasonable support to embed forms. Many elements, like dropdown lists and the use of the ‘Tab’ button, don’t respond as they do in classic HTML forms. To get around these problematic defaults, some clever ActionScript is needed.

But another problem worth mentioning is that forms in Flash aren’t always easily recognized as forms. This is attributable to the two issues: the design of the form is rarely that of a classic web form, and users are not (yet) used to Flash forms. So some help is required. Try putting a blinking cursor in the first entry field, or better yet, something like a big arrow that says Please Use This Form, will reduce the chance people will leave the page mystified.

There aren’t many examples on the Web where Flash forms really use the specific advantages of the Flash medium. Good examples are chat room applications with interactive characters and interactive games that require keyboard input. One clear advantage of Flash is its ability to make form posts without (re)loading a page. This is a feature that can be exploited in clever ways, but consider the visitors’ expectations (based on classic HTML forms): give clear feedback about post results after submission, or they’ll wait forever for a form to submit.