Some of our embed users are giving us feedback that the widgets in their dashboards are slow to load. There is definitely work we can do to improve the performance, but I also have a hypothesis:
The loading message shows the number of seconds it has been loading for. This is VERY helpful internally for our own understanding of the query performance. However, seeing the clock increment each second COULD be making users feel like the queries are slower than they are. Instead of “huh, that took a while to load” they end up very focused on the clock and can easily quantify the time. They end up thinking: “20 seconds?!, that’s too slow!”
I wonder if for embed users the message could not include the amount of time elapsed.
“Running query on database”
And the circle icon could still have the animation to show that something is happening.
From our experience, hiding the elapsed time is only good for loadings that take below 2 seconds. Otherwise, users often feel that it takes longer than it actually does.
A few years ago, Holistics actually did not show the elapsed time, and from our experience, it gave the users a worse experience. For example:
We found that users often complain about things like “my report took minutes to load” when the running duration is around 30 seconds.
User may think that the UI got stuck. After showing the elapsed time, we also record much fewer complaints like “my report is stuck at loading”.
Here is our breakdown analysis:
Approach
Pros
Cons
Show loading message only
* Better aesthetics * User may be less aware about the loading time
* User may (often) feel that it takes longer than it actually does * User may think that the UI is stuck → Inaccurate and unconstructive feedback
Show loading message with elapsed time
* Accurate system visibility for the users * User can give accurate feedback for dashboard owner/Holistics
* User is more aware that it is actually taking long
So that was our reasoning. We believe that accurate visibility and feedback loops are essential in improving the user experience.
Nevertheless, we will definitely consider adding a UI setting if this is in high demand.
