13 comments

  • Dan SherrattDan Sherratt, over 9 years ago

    I hate it, it's the right idea poorly executed.

    I'm aware that positive feedback to the user is the latest 'in' thing to do, Pinterest have a nice one with their average colour images, Instagram skip the whole loading process almost entirely and just tell you stuff is done, but this feels too clunky.

    I'm aware content should be there, but the boxy wireframes feel like a different kind of content, not a placeholder for the actual content.

    The web has always been frustrated by loading bars, because if they stall for any amount of time there has never really been a way to put the user at ease, it's a real problem that in my opinion is yet to be solved.

    3 points
    • Sam GarsonSam Garson, over 9 years ago

      I understand what you're saying, but still surely this is better than an actual loading bar, which as you say can be ambiguous?

      The content has to be loaded somewhere. At least this way, we know exactly what is being loaded.

      0 points
      • Dan SherrattDan Sherratt, over 9 years ago

        True, and in fact they appear to have updated it since their first attempt.

        Previously they had static wireframey things that were awful, this is a step in the right direction, a bit more movement makes it a bit nicer.

        0 points
        • Chris SlowikChris Slowik, over 9 years ago

          I disagree, this is not content. The static images were easier to mentally tune out. Now I fixate on them.. its annoying.

          Also, the "text" lines even show up for an image-only post. Poorly executed indeed.

          0 points
  • Grant McAllisterGrant McAllister, over 9 years ago

    This is a really nice little touch, it's to speed up the initial download of the page.

    The content is actually lazy loaded and placed in once the page has loaded.

    It's a great little detail!

    1 point
  • Ryan MurphyRyan Murphy, over 9 years ago

    Most definitely cheeky.

    0 points
  • Jim SilvermanJim Silverman, over 9 years ago

    i don't think this method works well on desktop. the content loads so fast in most cases that the brief flash of this gif is awkward and jarring.

    0 points
  • James Young, over 9 years ago

    I noticed this a while back when I got the new view but I honestly hated it from the first time I saw it.

    It may be that my connection isn't the world's fastest but to me this intermediate state just makes the feed load feel like it's very sluggish and pointlessly slow because I would bet they have the means to load pages almost instantly so I don't get why they give the impression of slowness.

    0 points
    • Chris SlowikChris Slowik, over 9 years ago

      Yea on a fast connection it actually makes the site feel slower. I've noticed my facebook "bounce rate" decline since they implemented it. It bothers me.

      It doesn't offer the user any real value. does knowing there are two posts loading help you? no..

      Also the loading state doesn't necessarily match the content. a picture-only post will still show "text" lines.

      When it was static, it was better... the shimmer makes it stand out more and really accentuates what should be easily ignored.

      0 points
  • Dan Boland, over 9 years ago

    I agree, it's great; I just posted an article talking about this feature. http://danboland.net/blog/facebook-ux

    0 points
  • Stephen AusmanStephen Ausman, over 9 years ago

    I'm using a similar technique on a site of mine except the loading state is populated with cached data (from localStorage) from the last time the user was on the page. Once the up-to-date data is loaded from the server it gets added.

    Stuff like this is one of the biggest advantages to using client-side rendering, especially when using an offline cache manifest. If you use both you can immediately render the page as it was the last time the user viewed it and the only thing the user has to wait for is new data.

    0 points
  • Lewis FludeLewis Flude, over 9 years ago

    I've had this for a while. Really cool!

    0 points
  • Bilal MohammedBilal Mohammed, over 9 years ago

    Yeah. Facebook Paper style.

    0 points