One for the glossary: ”benevolent deception”. 🤔 x.com/chenoehart/sta…
To be clear: I am not endorsing this term. I think it’s dangerous. It builds the narrative that deception is sometimes the preferred modus operandi.
It is sometimes preferred that changes in an interface take longer to play out than is technically possible, but that has to with meeting user expectations. It’s just good design.
We could add links to all pages on the homepage, but we don’t. That’s design, not deception.
My term for this is ”positive friction”. It is friction we add to empower and help people make better decisions.
A ”fake” progress bar is also not a favorite method of mine. There are other ways to communicate work performed and waiting time without necessarily opting for the illusion of a start and end calculation. A spinning loader gif being the most simple example.