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Fragment 15 of 72 · drawer 02

Estimate revision log

An original timeline showing how an apparently exact countdown can remain internally reasonable while contradicting itself.

Accession
MW-F-015
Representative period
Reconstructed long task, c. 2001
Drawer
Logs & traces
Certainty
high
MUSEUM OF WAITING / RECONSTRUCTED RECORD MW-F-015

Estimate revision log

Reconstructed long task, c. 2001

Observed surface

14:03:00 08% complete / 02:10 remaining

14:03:12 31% complete / 00:48 remaining

14:03:24 57% complete / 00:34 remaining

Implied procedure

14:03:36 71% complete / examining uncounted items

14:03:49 88% complete / 00:09 remaining

14:04:02 99% complete / finalisation begins

Interpretive residue

14:04:21 complete / actual duration 01:21

The estimate did not measure the future. It repeatedly projected a future from the work most recently seen.

INTERPRETIVE COPY DO NOT CITE AS A HISTORICAL ARTEFACT

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.

  1. 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 ↗
  2. 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 ↗
  3. Nielsen Norman Group · 1993–2024 Response Times: The Three Important Limits A durable summary of the rough thresholds at which interaction feels immediate, continuous or attention-breaking. Open institutional record ↗