Fragment 3 of 72 · drawer 01
Do not trust the first estimate
An imaginary workplace notice explaining why a progress indicator can be informative without being a timetable.
- Accession
- MW-F-003
- Representative period
- Interface field note, 1985–2005
- Drawer
- Instructions & warnings
- Certainty
- high
Do not trust the first estimate
Interface field note, 1985–2005
Observed surface
PERCENT COMPLETE describes counted work, not necessarily remaining time.
TIME REMAINING is recalculated from work already observed.
A changing estimate is evidence of new information, not a clock running backward.
Implied procedure
Record the first estimate only if comparison itself is part of the task.
Otherwise, arrange the next interruption around a range rather than the single number displayed.
Interpretive residue
The instruction asks the operator to translate a precise-looking display back into uncertainty.
Its real subject is not arithmetic but the social authority of a number beside a progress bar.
Accountability record
Evidence beneath the reconstruction.
These institutional sources support the mechanism or historical practice interpreted above. They do not contain this reconstructed record, its wording, or its invented values.
- ACM · 1985 The importance of percent-done progress indicators for computer-human interfaces Brad A. Myers' 48-participant experiment: 86.1% preferred the percent-done condition, a result reported with p = .0006. The paper studied rather than invented the progress bar. Open institutional record ↗
- WHATWG HTML Standard · living standard The progress element The modern web platform's distinction between determinate progress and a task whose duration is unknown. Open institutional record ↗
- Blender Manual · current Rendering Animations Describes animation as a sequence of independently rendered frames and why image sequences remain the resilient workflow. Open institutional record ↗