&gt; Because of that, people hate to see only a loading spinner with no indication of progress or time.<p>I hate to see the loading spinner at all. It gives you no indication if something is actually happening. (Actually, I feel much the same about progress bars that don&#x27;t indicate what steps are being taken, as well.) These things will happily sit there spinning forever, possibly doing something, possibly just frozen. Who knows? I hate having to choose between being patient (and possibly a schmuck) or stopping something and trying to solve the problem.<p>These things give no indication of what went wrong, no starting point for where to look, and nothing useful to tell tech support if you call.<p>Caller: I clicked &#x27;Update&#x27; and it shows me three pulsing dots. It&#x27;s not doing anything.
Tech: The process can take up to X minutes.
Caller: It&#x27;s been three hours.
Tech: Sometimes it can take that long.
Caller: ???<p>Versus<p>Caller: I clicked &#x27;Update&#x27; and it&#x27;s been on &#x27;reticulating splines&#x27; for an hour.
Tech: That&#x27;s weird. That part of the process should only take a minute. Do X... does that work?
Caller: That worked, thanks!<p>I&#x27;m sure lots and lots of UI research has determined that people don&#x27;t want to see the guts of an application and want it to work by magic. But I find it completely asinine.