Visual Tricks Can Make Downloads Seem Quicker

Not only are progress bars nice communication to users, they also make downloads seem faster. Turns out that some animation on the progress bar can enhance this effect.

They found that, on average, a 5.61-second rippling progress bar appeared to take the same amount of time as a 5-second standard bar, and a 16.75-second-long rippling bar seemed to take as long as a 15-second-long standard bar – illusory speeding-up effects of 10.9 per cent and 10.4 per cent respectively.