# When WYS =/= WYG **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 12, 2006, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763 "2006-12-12T01:22:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/1 "2006-12-12T01:22:48Z")
I hate it when what something promises is not quite what is delivered. Or when what _appears_ to be going on is not _actually_ what is happening. The so- called “WYSIWYG” design acronym which apparently not enough designers and marketers have bothered to read and learn. [[Wikipedia Link]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wysiwyg) Example: those “progress bars” you see on various computer applications. You’d think they are either representing the amount of time left before the task is done and/or the percentage of the task which is completed. So why does something like loading a map in Battlefield 1942 result in the progress bar quickly jumping ahead at the beginning, stopping abruptly (at around 30%) and remaining at a standstill for 30 seconds, before jumping repidly ahead, almost reaching the end, only to pause once again for 15 seconds when it appears to _finally_ be on the verge of initializing the scenario? If time to completion is not what is being represented, then what the \*&%# is it supposed to represent anyway? [Something completely different but same general idea] Or store coupons which come attached to the product. I have a bottle of dish cleaner which still proudly bears the coupon which the kindly checkout clerk never bothered to peel off. Why should \>I\< have to remind her to do so? ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/2 "2006-12-12T02:46:33Z")
Percentage of the file read, and not the time your processer is working away at 100% capacity. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/3 "2006-12-12T11:05:14Z")
The problem with progress bars is that you can’t know in advance how long a task will take. So you have to use checkpoints and estimates, which do not hold up in real world use. Programmers just use them to assure users that something is actually happening. Si ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/4 "2006-12-12T11:16:00Z")
“Progress” can be measured in many ways. I’ve worked in projects were we counted it on several bars: one for time, one for money, one for data and one for targets. The example in the OP sounds to me like the bar itself shows “amount of map opened” but the info has to be read from several files: so, first it reads some small pieces and goes up to a place where it has to read a huuuuuuuuuuuuge file and… gets… stuck… k… k… until if finishes reading the huge file and then it takes that huge leap and wraps up with more smallish files. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/5 "2006-12-12T18:43:52Z")
Well okay that is answered… Nobody else has any other examples? Cecil had a column on [crosswalk](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_153.html) buttons: You push the button with the expectation that it will respond promptly to your request, but all it does is turn “walk” once the already-predetermined cycle reaches the corresponding stage-and not a second sooner. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/6 "2006-12-12T20:14:26Z")
Psst, John. You can just keep typing in the post box and the text will wrap around. You don’t have to return on each line. ---
**Author:** ![Auntbeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/7 "2006-12-12T20:23:23Z")
I had a “dishwasher” that made dishes dirtier. I’ve been on a lifetime quest for a bottle that holds liquid that will spray it out in a fine mist. Staplers that don’t staple. Garbage disposals that green peas stop up. It isn’t just computers. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/8 "2006-12-12T22:20:13Z")
When I worked in retail (OfficeMax), one of my duties was to set merchandise displays on the shelves. The arrangement of the merchandise was mapped out on a diagram- often times barely legible due to having third- or fourth-generation photocopies by the time it got to me. While such displays would work in theory, in practice they rarely, if ever came together the same way. All too often the items would not all fit on one shelf, so I’d end up having to improvise and modify things. I could also count on at least half the items called for not even being available, so there would be plenty of gaps in the display, and sometimes it was difficult to estimate how much space to allocate for said items should they actually come in. Management could never make up their minds whether to leave “holes” in the display, or “flex” the merchandise, that is, take what we do have and fill in the spaces. In any case, the end result was defintely WYS!=WYG. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/9 "2006-12-13T02:28:44Z")
My typing habits are pretty well ingrained-comes from a posting environment where if you didn’t hit hard returns at the end of each line, your line would scroll for ages upon end to the right, and people would get annoyed. Now I do it to make it easier to find my posts (tho yes that is pretty presumptuous I guess…), and I’m a nonconformist at heart too. ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/10 "2006-12-13T07:58:23Z")
[QUOTE=John DiFool] [Something completely different but same general idea] Or store coupons which come attached to the product. I have a bottle of dish cleaner which still proudly bears the coupon which the kindly checkout clerk never bothered to peel off. Why should \>I\< have to remind her to do so? [/QUOTE] Because occasionally she forgets to pull a coupon off of the approximately 2,000 things she scans each day? ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/11 "2006-12-13T19:27:14Z")
[QUOTE=John DiFool] Well okay that is answered… Nobody else has any other examples? Cecil had a column on [crosswalk](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_153.html) buttons: You push the button with the expectation that it will respond promptly to your request, but all it does is turn “walk” once the already-predetermined cycle reaches the corresponding stage-and not a second sooner. [/QUOTE] The crosswalk buttons do serve a purpose. They let the signal know that someone is waiting to cross the street. In my case, there is a signal near my neighborhood that changes very rapidly if the corsswalk button is not pushed, but will give you an extra 30 seconds or so if you press the button. They can also serve as an indicator to let IR signals know that something smaller than a car or motorcycle is waiting to cross the street at the crosswalk, thus making the signal change for cross-traffic (where it would normally not change until a vehicle presented itself at the light). ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/12 "2006-12-14T00:15:04Z")
[QUOTE=crazyjoe] The crosswalk buttons do serve a purpose. They let the signal know that someone is waiting to cross the street. In my case, there is a signal near my neighborhood that changes very rapidly if the corsswalk button is not pushed, but will give you an extra 30 seconds or so if you press the button. They can also serve as an indicator to let IR signals know that something smaller than a car or motorcycle is waiting to cross the street at the crosswalk, thus making the signal change for cross-traffic (where it would normally not change until a vehicle presented itself at the light). [/QUOTE] I believe that they actually use magnetics, not IR, but the rest of your post is correct. ---
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-wys-wyg/383763/13 "2006-12-14T01:04:26Z")
I thought \*\*John \*\* was making some kind of hardcore WYSIWYG statement with his hard returns. I was pretty disappointed with just about all the school/office supplies I bought from Target this fall. It seemed distinctly “Made in China, for China” quality. I mean, how can you screw up a highlighter? Something about the tips is not right and they don’t freakin’ highlight. Restaurant menus with pictures are another non-WYSIWYG situation. I did have a funny experience with that, at a Houlihan’s. Things went very poorly with my order, and I had to send it back twice, the second time through the manager. When it finally came back, it really DID look like the picture. So apparently someone back there does know how to plate the food, but they just usually don’t bother.