Is a Loading label / notification on link click / redirect necessary?

Question

Is a Loading label / notification on link click / redirect necessary?

Nowadays if I click a link the only sign that something is happening or processing is that the favicon on the tab changes into a loading icon. If I remember correctly browsers used to change the mouse cursor to wait.

Anyway my concern is . . When the page is responding slowly the tendency is users that did not notice the loading icon on the tab would spam click a link which would lead to:

click->cancel request->create new request->click->cancel request->create new request->click

Which would technically take even longer for a page to load.

SO should a more noticeable notification be implemented like maybe a Loading at the top or bottom of the screen? Or just leave it as is?

What do you guys think?

Answer 1

A "Loading" mention is the simplest thing to implement because it is plain text. If it is technically possible, you might consider a progress bar. If the calculations for a real progress bar are not practical, consider an indeterminate progress bar.

To answer your question "is it necessary," that depends on how long a response time you are talking about. You might find the following study of interest: http://cba.unl.edu/research/articles/548/