Clocks as progress bars, please

From an information design standpoint, the analog 3-handed clock is pretty terrible, needing a glance at three disparate points and multiple spatial calculations to arrive at a few numbers. But we forgive this inefficiency because they look rather nice.

What is less forgivable however, is the concept of displaying time as an isolated, static pair of numbers. As a general rule, I avoid numbers when visualizing quantities. I prefer a graphic that can convey the scale of the quantity instead (like the impact bars I added to items of the Frontier 2025 site). Symbols are indirection, and it’s hard to feel quantities by looking at their numerical representation.

I prefer my numbers to be placed within a narrative; the steady climb of a progress graph, a series of comparable lines, as squares of varying brightness. Especially when dealing with time, a quantity so linked to change that some people like to define it as a measure of such. It feels silly that I have to compare 4:00 PM and 8:00 PM through mental arithmetic instead of being able to simply see the difference.

And the subtractions are numerous and happening all the time. How much time until bed? When is the next meal? How much time has passed since I last picked up my phone? Somehow doing the subtraction in my head and arriving at an abstract number (2 hours on Twitter…) doesn’t feel as visceral as a physical representation.

I’ll admit I also hope that a 24-hour bar will add firmer bounds to a “day”…

We have a few famous bars and grids for tracking progress through the year, a Japanese timer progress bar, and a ridiculous abuse of the clock metaphor for existential risk. But nobody wants to give me a 24 hour progress bar that I can pay money for and have delivered to my house. The best I could find were:

• this mock image (from a seemingly adulterous husband?) at #14 on, uh…the 24 Geekiest Clocks Ever Made.
• an Instructables page for a DIY progress bar clock made form 3D-printed parts and LEDs.
• a single Reddit post from 2015 asking for the same thing as me
• an overpriced circular clock that is kinda a progress bar

P.S: I do have a particular design in mind (see my Workbench page), but the more variety the better.

P.P.S: It’s slightly sad how most of the popular time-related progress bars are about scarcity (years left in an 80-year lifespan, days left in a year), because those clocks run out once and then it’s all over. A daily clock is much less cruel because it will refresh again the next morning! You get to see the hours fill up today, but with the knowledge that there will be new ones soon.

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