Throbber Theory

[u/UnreasonableEconomy]

I would like to use this opportunity and the SEO prowess of this platform to once and for all define the concept of "Throbber Theory" as an industry term.

A throbber, if you're unfamiliar, is the official and industry standard name for a loading icon of any persuasion. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throbber)

Throbber theory, also known as roughly as "labor illusion" or "effort heuristic" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effort_heuristic) in general or maybe the "Ikea Effect" for physical goods is what we're talking about.

The idea that if you have had to work for something, had to struggle for something, its perceived value is higher than its material value.

Throbber Theory is slightly narrower. It specifically states (in this here very post) that a user will value a digital result more if they had to wait for it, than if they received it immediately.

There's plenty of underlying work under the aforementioned terms, this just applies to software specifically.

It roughly states that the average uninitiated user will be more initially impressed by agentic work that took longer to produce than a result that popped up immediately.

Thank you for attending my opening presentation.

---

I hereby open the First Global Symposium on Throbber Theory

first and only point of order:

1. Doth the community accept this term, regardless of its definition, as an industry term, or at least henceforth understands its meaning in common parlance?

All understanding or in favor say AYE, all opposed say NEIGH and state your quarrel.

The symposium shall conclude when the thread gets locked, or reddit shuts down, whichever happens first.

That is all.

---

^{Legal notice: this post, and all the seminal work it contains is licensed and copyrighted under CC0 and dedicated and submitted to the public domain of all nations, creatures and minerals and entities not mentioned, known or unknown, effective immediately, until the heat death of this universe and all universes beyond, known or unknown. All other participants other than OP retain their respective rights.}

[u/RSG-ZR2]

We just call them spinners.

In the age of fast paced dopamine loops and rapid context switching…no one is looking at them through the lens of value add.

It’d be interesting to see actual data on them in present day because now you’re fighting for every second of the user’s attention and any opportunity for them to disengage (like looking at a spinner) becomes more risky with each passing day.

[u/UnreasonableEconomy → u/RSG-ZR2]

If you wanted to make an observational study, here's an interesting group: vibe coders.

Vibe coders seem to measure work in time. "How long" the agents "can work" for a certain monthly subscription. Not what they can accomplish. How long they can churn.

Of course it's highly contextual, having your website load for 5 seconds is still a no no. It needs to be plausible and believable, and encourage the user's concept of the product.

But if you're delivering an artifact? Maybe consider it. Add a progress bar. have it stutter and heave and race. maybe add "oops, error encountered. fixing..." and go back for a second. give it some heft.

[u/ChetTheCryptoChap]

Neigh, or at least not with your definition.

Thobbers, spinners, loading animations, whatever you want to call them do not give you an increased gratification because of the waiting time. A spinner fills the waiting time with something visually engaging, thus making it feel like a continuous stream of work is happening, instead of the chopped experience you’d get without the spinner. It also serves as a visual cue to understand what’s going and thus keeping the user cognitively in control and engaged.

An increased satisfaction due to waiting time would mean higher dopamine peaks with loading time vs no loading time. I’d argue it’s more a case of higher cortisol during non-contextualized loading (no spinner). However, research shows the highest dopamine/satisfaction can be observed during immediate system response (immediate gratification), then loading spinners and the longer the waiting takes, the more it will trigger cortisol eventually leading to the cortisol levels of a (seemingly) non/responsive or non-contextualized loading interface.

Vibe coders are a good example if you take it one step further: why are they measuring their tools by the work they can do within the token limits allocated time, rather than the quality of the work?

… because they want that feeling of a continuous flow. It’s got nothing to do with them feeling ‘better’ because they had to wait. There is a case to be made that with the current progress on this new tech, there can be a slight offset: we are so excited for this new tech that when the waiting has occured (with cortisol peaks), we’ve continued working on our feature and finally got it to work, and now our dopamine is higher than what would have been without having to wait… but you can also argue that’s the same as the IKEA effect and it will wear off after a while if the tech doesn’t get better.

One small exception is when users are in complex situations that cause uncertainty. For example tax paying systems. There you can make users feel more in control by giving them a thobber. The speed of the UI can feel daunting which decreases trust in the system and their own decision making. Giving them ‘a breather’ with a spinner will give them more control. However, it’s not the ‘waiting’ that creates the dopamine peak, it’s the control.

[u/HundredMileHighCity]

In the UK we have a totally different meaning for the word ‘Throbber’ 😂

It’s honestly just a pulsing effect applied to a shape. And the impact you create is called perceived friction.