Silly Preferences
I’m of the opinion that all apps should strive to provide as few user preferences as possible, especially if your preference is for something that’s superfluous and self-aggrandizing, a feature who’s entire raison d’etre is to get in the user’s face. Aka: the splash screen:
Where “Max” == “Yes I’d like this application to freeze on start-up for 10 seconds every time I launch it so I can look at the version number rather than do something useful, like work.”
If you’ve ever found yourself thinking “I guess I should provide a way for user’s to disable this feature” the real decision you’re probably trying to make is: “should I cut from my app entirely this feature?”
When it comes to splash screens, the answer is always “yes”. Always.
(That image is from one of the preference panes of an actual Mac app. Fortunately it is not widely used.)
Phillip Gawlowski responded on 04 May 2008 at 11:59 am #
At least a splash screen should be cut if the environment provides a visual clue that yes, the application is starting, no need to click on the icon the third time. Otherwise, it should be there to provide visual feed back that the app is loading.
And if it takes longer than 2 seconds, it should provide a progress bar, too.
Also known as the ‘multiple form submission’ for web applications.
chris responded on 04 May 2008 at 2:45 pm #
Mac OS already provides a plethora of UI elements that indicate the load status of an application: Dock icon, menu bar application name, menu bar itself. Non-functional splash screens are just gratuitous.
However if the application takes a long time to load, as do many games and apps such as Photoshop, then the proper action to take is, as you note, some form of load progress indicator.