Progress Indicator System
Tell people how far along the work is, in the same way every time.
What it adds
A consistent set of bars, rings, step trackers, and accompanying text for work that takes measurable time.
What your agent is told to do
5
What your agent is told to do
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1
Identify every operation in the app that takes long enough to need feedback — uploads, imports, exports, batch actions, multi-step flows — and decide for each whether its progress is genuinely measurable.
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Use a determinate form only when a real proportion is known. Where the total is unknown, use an indeterminate form and say what is happening in words rather than inventing a percentage.
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Pair every indicator with text that names the operation and its current position, so the information survives for someone who cannot see the graphic.
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Define paused, failed, and cancelled as first-class endings with their own treatment, and make it clear whether partial work was kept or discarded.
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Do not conflate this with the pending state of a single button, which is owned by Async Button. That brief covers a request in flight; this one covers work with duration and measurable position.
Edge cases it handles
7
Edge cases it handles
7- A determinate bar showing a fabricated percentage is worse than an honest indeterminate one, because it sets an expectation the system cannot meet and stalls visibly at ninety-nine percent.
- Progress must be announced to assistive technology at meaningful intervals only. Announcing every increment floods the screen reader; announcing nothing leaves the user with no idea the work is proceeding.
- Paused, failed, and cancelled each need a distinct end state saying what happened to the work already done. A bar that simply stops moving is indistinguishable from a hung process.
- Work continuing in the background must remain discoverable after the user navigates away, through a persistent indicator they can return to rather than a toast that has already gone.
- Progress that goes backwards, or that jumps to complete without passing through the middle, undermines every subsequent indicator in the app.
- Step trackers must show which steps are done, which is current, and which remain, and must not let a user believe a skipped optional step was completed.
- Users who have asked for reduced motion must still see progress; replace the animation, not the information.
Definition of done
8
Definition of done
8- Every operation over the defined duration threshold shows progress feedback.
- Determinate indicators are used only where a true proportion is known.
- Each indicator is accompanied by text naming the operation and its position.
- Paused, failed, and cancelled states are visually distinct and state the fate of partial work.
- Background work remains discoverable after navigating away from the originating view.
- Progress is announced at meaningful intervals and remains legible under reduced-motion settings.
- The feature matches the existing design system.
- No existing functionality is broken.
Related features
Screen Reader Only Utility
Screen Reader Only Utility
One tested way to add text for assistive technology without it appearing on screen.
What it does
A single visually hidden utility used for labels, instructions, and context that assistive technology needs and sighted users do not.
How it works
- 1 Find every place the app currently hides text from sight — off-screen positioning, zero dimensions, transparent colour, tiny font sizes, aria-label strings duplicating nearby copy — and consolidate them onto one utility.
- 2 Build it by clipping the element to nothing while keeping it rendered and in the accessibility tree: it must occupy no visual space and contribute nothing to layout, yet still be read in document order.
- 3 Provide a second variant that becomes visible when it receives focus, and use it for skip links and any other hidden content that is itself focusable.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/screen-reader-only-utility
Avatar Group
Avatar Group
Show who is involved in a compact space without a pile of broken images.
What it does
A stacked set of member avatars with deterministic ordering, an overflow count, and access to the full list.
How it works
- 1 Find the places that show several people at once — assignees, collaborators, workspace members, comment participants — and render them through one grouped component.
- 2 Order the stack deterministically by a stable rule such as role then name, so the same group renders in the same order on every load and every device.
- 3 Cap the number shown and collapse the remainder into a single count that is announced meaningfully, not as a bare number sitting after a row of pictures.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/avatar-group
Roving Tabindex Utility
Roving Tabindex Utility
Give composite widgets one tab stop, with arrow keys moving inside them.
What it does
A shared keyboard-navigation behaviour for toolbars, tab strips, menus, option lists, and grids.
How it works
- 1 Find the composite widgets where the keyboard currently steps through every child — toolbars, tab strips, menus, segmented controls, option lists, calendar grids, card grids — and give each a single tab stop with arrow keys operating inside it.
- 2 Track the active item by stable identity rather than by index, so items appearing, disappearing, or being reordered cannot move the active position onto an unrelated control.
- 3 Support the orientations these widgets genuinely take: a horizontal row, a vertical list, and a two-dimensional grid where up and down move between rows. Include Home and End, and decide explicitly whether the ends wrap.
Copy the prompt
No account needed
Add this feature to my app:
https://addthisfeature.com/x/roving-tabindex-utility
How it works
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1
Copy the link
Grab the Markdown instruction URL for this feature.
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2
Give it to your AI
Paste it into Claude Code, Cursor, v0, Lovable — whatever you build with.
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3
It inspects, then implements
Your agent reads your existing app first, then adds the feature to fit it.
Works with your stack
These instructions are written to adapt. They tell the agent to detect your framework, match your existing design system, and reuse what you already have — rather than assuming a particular stack.
Need it tighter than that? Customize the feature and tell it exactly what you're running.