Hello, I trust you’re all ok,

There’s something stressing me about Tableau. It might not be the most obvious but I’ll have a go at describing it anyway.

See I demo Tableau Server all the time. Like daily. To some pretty senior people that I really want to impress. These demos often involve clicking around the server views to show some of the user content. Trouble is some of my user content isn’t that great. It can be badly designed and slow to load – that’s a separate issue that my team is working on.

So I click on the view and then, there it is…..

Spin, spin, spin. Will it be 2 seconds or 20? Will it even load at all? The room falls quiet as all eyes settle on the spinning circle. The audience is almost hypnotised. The tension grows, until the view pops into life (or occasionally doesn’t). It’s the moment I dread as I know everyone is staring at the circle, waiting. Seems like it makes 5 seconds feel like 50.

So here are my issues with this.

Positioning – The spinner is bang in the middle of the screen, you can’t avoid it. It grabs your attention and also the attention of the room. Everyone starts watching it whether they want to or not.

– The spinner is bang in the middle of the screen, you can’t avoid it. It grabs your attention and also the attention of the room. Everyone starts watching it whether they want to or not. Information – The spinner doesn’t give any indication of the progress of the operation. I’m not sure how it can, given the nature of the underlying queries but it’s still a problem.

– The spinner doesn’t give any indication of the progress of the operation. I’m not sure how it can, given the nature of the underlying queries but it’s still a problem. Inconsistency – Often the spin rate slows slightly just prior to completion. But sometimes it speeds up again. So I think it’s about to complete, then it carries on. I know it’s just an animated gif but it still seems to occur occasionally.

– Often the spin rate slows slightly just prior to completion. But sometimes it speeds up again. So I think it’s about to complete, then it carries on. I know it’s just an animated gif but it still seems to occur occasionally. Errors – I’ve had occasions when the connection is lost with the server for whatever reason, but the circle keeps going. That’s very misleading.

I think everyone accepts that applications which perform loading operations will generally have some sort of indicator. But I think the spinning circle can be improved.

The psychology of waiting is certainly an interesting subject. This post refers to a study conducted by Facebook that seems to suggest the type of indicator used can affect how the user perceives the problem. Admittedly the post doesn’t provide an accurate source for this but I thought it interesting nonetheless.

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There’s plenty of chat on how to make that waiting game feel less of a drag to users. This post from UXMovement.com has a number of suggestions such as

Use backwards moving ribbings

Increase number of pulsations

Accelerate progress, avoid pauses

Also take a look at this article by Chris Harrison. The associated video shows the theory in action and there’s a detailed study of the theories available.

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I wonder how much thought Tableau have given the format and positioning of the spinning circle as well as the science of perceived performance as opposed to actual performance. I think the consensus is that a progress bar is the best option but I know that won’t happen as Tableau can’t easily know the duration of a query. However, there are plenty of recommendations out there that may be worth considering. Why not make use of every trick in the book to make users feel they’re getting a faster experience?

There has been some chat on the Tableau forums about this (thanks @johncmunoz). It seems such an insignificant component but why not add as much polish to the tool as possible? Anyway, I’m no expert on this so maybe someone who knows the subject can supply more info.

Until then I’ll just think of appropriate 90’s synth-pop as the circle spins.

Regards, Paul