Spark Synchronisation Dialog

Shouldn't that be Synchronising?

Shouldn’t that be Synchronising?

This simple dialog from the iOS email app. Spark illustrates how you need to consider different possibilities when creating copy for dialogs. In this dialog, “Please wait a minute” might seem like a great choice, it’s polite and gives what could be an accurate estimation of the task completion. The graphic also gives the user a sense of progress. Unfortunately in this instance there was an error which prevented the process from being completed, turning an estimated 1 minute task into 5 or more. It’s hard to accommodate outliers but it’s how you handle these instances that make a greater impact.

In the absence of accurate data (this I am sure was supposed to be a very short process so they likely decided not to include a progress bar) it’s important to properly set user expectations, well it’s always important to do so. Copy plays a big part in this.


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