Post #1261256

2026-03-24 17:25 UTC

I sometimes receive notifications that I can expect a delivery in a 2-hour window such as "between 12:07 and 14:07". To quote to the minute shows a failure of understanding of what an approximate range is, as well traffic and logistics. It's a 2-hour window of imprecision. Quoting to the minute shows a deep lack of understanding. Quoting to 5-minute intervals is just about acceptable. To 10- or 15-minute is more appropriate significance. But honestly, in this case, to the hour is just fine.

Replies (9)

@kevlin@mastodon.social 2026-03-24 17:30

In such cases, it makes the company and the software authors look incompetent and clueless about their own domain, whereas they should present the exact opposite. This doesn't mean that your plan or your calculations don't contain such precision, but there is an art to presentation logic and UX that has been developed over many decades — as well as experimental science and metrology over centuries — that often seems thrown out the window when it comes to presenting something in a window.

Open ##1261257
@kevlin@mastodon.social 2026-03-27 12:34

Received a message telling me to expect a delivery "between 09:50am and 2:45pm". To their credit, they avoided quoting the estimated range to the minute (or to the second!), but the implication of quoting such limits to a precision of 5 minutes is nonsense given that the window of uncertainty is 5 hours. When developing software systems, understand your domain and understand your users. Your users are human, so go with "between 10am and 3pm" to sound like you know what you're doing.

Open ##1261261
@kdekooter@mastodon.social 2026-03-24 17:31

@kevlin It is always 07 and never say 23 or 41. Wonder what the algorithm is. And if the developers eat their own dogfood.

Open ##1261266
@bix@chaos.social 2026-03-24 18:15

@kevlin or the “order before end of the day” timeframe is shown as before 23:59 or even worse before 23:55 when we all (should) know the day ends at 24:00 (insert 12 hour versions for those who believe in that)

Open ##1261267
@gerbrand@fosstodon.org 2026-03-24 18:37

@kevlin Arguably here the minute does make some sense. It's a confidence interveal, presumably with 95% confidence level.

Open ##1261271
@m1ke@phpc.social 2026-03-24 21:17

@kevlin this one has always seemed ridiculous to me - especially when the drivers often don't even show within the 2h window

Open ##1261272
@RonJeffries@mastodon.social 2026-03-25 03:26

@kevlin I hope that soon this will be my biggest gripe about the world! 😆

Open ##1261274
@zudnick@mas.to 2026-03-25 15:17

@kevlin I'm pretty sure it's actually done on purpose. A lot of people confuse accuracy with precision, so a very precise value - Google Maps telling me it'll take 4 hours 21 mins to get to London if I leave now - makes people believe it must be right.

Open ##1261276
@xris@layer8.space 2026-03-27 15:04

@kevlin On the other hand, I hate when Timestamps are given relatively. I prefer unnessesary nanosecond precision over a vague "a few moments ago" any time.

Open ##1261301