[GUI] Transaction confirmation counter "clock" symbol does not visualize proportional #11581

Transaction confirmation counter "clock" symbol does not visualize proportional

• I would expect the clock/progress meter not to show zero, when there is 1 confirmation, but to show/visualize more than zero (I would expect to see a progress of 1/6 <=> 10/60 "mins")
• with "min" here, I do not mean real time minutes, but shares of 60 "min" on a clock (full circle).

Expected behaviour

When less than six, the transaction confirmation counter "clock" symbol should show the proportional share of 60 min: 0 confirmations: Question sign 1 confirmation: Clock "10 min" past 2 confirmations: Clock "20 min" past 4 confirmations: Clock "40 min" past 5 confirmations: Clock "50 min" past 6 confirmations: Check sign

Actual behaviour what clock symbol shows:

0 confirmations: Question sign 1 confirmation: Empty (white) clock, with a black line showing north (I would interpret that normally as zero, like on a analog speed meter) 2 confirmations: Clock "15 min" past (quarter of the clock black) 3 confirmations: Clock "30 min" past (that is correct) 4 confirmations: Clock "45 min" past, see screenshot 5 confirmations: Clock "60 min" past 6 confirmations: Check sign

Screenshots

Here a screenshot of the clock symbol for a transaction that got 4 confirmations

Version 0.15.0.1

Some additional words

I admit, that this is really a nit, nevertheless maybe someone thinks, that this could be improved, too (and has capacity to do that). I know, contributors have really more significant work to do, and I appreciate Your work very much!

Edit: Tried to make my (really trivial?) point more clear, hopefully

Confirmations are not linear - it's much, much, much more likely for you to see a one block reorg than a 2, and same for further numbers. If anything the logo nonlinearity could be increased, IMO.

On October 30, 2017 2:39:28 PM EDT, wodry notifications@github.com wrote:

Transaction confirmation counter "clock" symbol does not visualize

proportional

The "clock" does not show the proportional share of confirmations of the expected to be safe value of 6 confirmations (expected to be 60 min). It would be clearer for the user, if one could read the proportional value of confirmations directly and correctly from the clock.

Expected behaviour

When less than six, the transaction confirmation counter "clock" symbol should show the proportional share of 60 min: 2 confirmations: 20 min past 4 confirmations: 40 min past 5 confirmations: 50 min past

Actual behaviour what clock symbol shows:

2 confirmations: 15 min past 3 confirmations: 30 min past (that is correct) 4 confirmations: 45 min past, see screenshot 5 confirmations: 60 min past

Screenshots

Here a screenshot of the clock symbol for a transaction that got 4 confirmations

Version 0.15.0.1

Some additional words

I admit, that this is really a nit, nevertheless maybe someone thinks, that this could be improved, too (and has capacity to do that). I know, contributors have really more significant work to do, and I appreciate Your work very much!

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I've always thought of that icon as more of a circular progress meter, not a clock, it fills up one step at a time with each confirmation

Text updated. Hopefully, now more clear what I mean...? @MeshCollider Yes, but this is not the case, since 1 confirmation is shown as 0 progress.

It's possible the concept of "Bitcoin confirmations" doesn't map well to UX elements like progress bars and circles. Indeed, one might expect it to move at some constant rate (though that's also not gonna happen due to natural variance), but then maybe we should use some other element that shows security of a transaction increasing exponentially in some human-understandable way?

On October 30, 2017 9:47:05 PM EDT, wodry notifications@github.com wrote:

Text updated. Hopefully, now more clear what I mean...?

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I think @wodry has a point here. Also agree with @TheBlueMatt that the security you get with each confirmation is not linear. Though, I'm not sure if that must be transported on the UI (ideally it could, but more or less orthogonal to this issue). The UI does only count/display the amount of confirmation not the amount of security (the non-linear part), the later is currently up to the users definition (which indeed is not ideal).

The problem with the UI is that the 10min, 20min, 40min, 50min icon would look worse on non HiDPI screens.

PRs welcome.

I think the symbol represents that a transaction ages as it "collects" confirmations. The "clock" symbol is based on the stopwatch icon and does not necessarily represent a time of exactly 60 minutes. Imo it should be interpreted that "more black" means "older" transaction and as @jonasschnelli suggest it is not worth to mess with the look and feel on non-hidpi screens.

what if we were to make confirmations 1-5 look like the above picture instead? So 4 and 5 being a full back circle but with a number in it to represent the confirmation number. They are all under "Segoe UI Symbol" Font.

Proportionality (current) makes more sense than a clock. Blocks are not evenly spaced every 10 minutes, and there are scenarios where we really ought to ignore blocks toward confirmations (although we don't yet).

If we should stay away from clock-type icons. What about using something like a signal strength icon with 6 bars. Could also separate those bars into blocks so it looks like your stacking blocks. Like the above picture

Could also do icons that look more like a chain of blocks

Please no "signal strength" to count the number of confirmations and if you go for the blocks icon, the number of blocks must match the number of confirmations. Everything else would be confusing.

I have no strong opinion here. @wodry's initial suggestion seems sensible at first glance, but @TheBlueMatt has a very good point that security in non-linear, so any visual cue that gives the impression of linearity gives users the wrong intuition about confirmation security.

Unless anyone has a concrete proposal for how we should change this, and they can get consensus to implement it, I suggest we close this issue.