Progress Bar Speed

[Nuncio1]

Is there any way of slowing down the progress bar and or the actual install speed itself. It may sound silly, but my project is only small (9 meg), but I would like the user to feel that they are getting just a little more than that. The best way would be if I could slow down the prgress bar itself.

Did that make sense?

Nuncio1

[Winsteps]

The user's perception of value is certainly everything! But my users are delighted when installs are really fast with minimal user intervention. They want to get busy using the software, not sit there watching an install bar.

Perhaps if you display a message such as "Warp-speed install activated ...."

[Nuncio1]

A most wonderful suggestion! I will certainly give that a try.

I think I was just trying to make the user feel that they were getting just a little more than they actually are (in megabytes I mean).

Thanks again

Nuncio1

[Lorne]

One way to give users more is to give them more. For example, you could make a short video showing how to use your product, and include that in your distribution.

Artificially slowing down a progress bar in order to make it more noticeable isn't wrong, but you have to be careful not to go too far with that. For example, if your progress bar appears and disappears so quickly that you get questions from users who think the install didn't happen correctly, then it might make sense to introduce a very small delay in the On Progress event. (Project > Screens > While Installing > Edit > Actions > On Progress)

Be very careful not to slow your installation down much, however. You need to weigh your desire to simulate added value against the potential problems. What if you make a mistake and it breaks the install on someone's system, or makes the install reaaaaaaaaally sloooooooooow in certain conditions? What if your customers see added value in smaller, more efficient software? (In which case you could ironically be making things worse by making your software seem bigger.)



This reminds me of the installer for a submarine simulation named Silent Hunter IV. During the installation, a series of background images is shown, essentially showing off screenshots of the game, with a slow and clunky-looking transition from one image to the next.

Which would be fine if it stopped when the installation was over, but on my system, the actual installation finishes well before the last image is shown. You have to wait for all of the remaining images to be shown, each one with a slow transition, before the installer will exit. So a feature which was intended to impress the user ends up just being annoying.