Best practice: show load indicator and wait until completion or give error afterwards?

Question

I've got an app in which the user has to wait about 1-2 seconds before confirmation by the server. It basically exists of 1) uploading a picture and 2) sending a request to a cloud server. After both responded with a success, I know that all went well and the user is ready to move on. However, I feel like it 'breaks' the experience and figured that maybe faking the success might be a best practice, and in case of an error the user gets notified to redo the task.

What do you feel like is best practice and why?

Answer 1

It depends on what you would have the user do in the case of a failure. If there isn't anything they can do to fix the problem, if it's something you have to handle on the back end, just go. If there is something they should do and it fits naturally in order, then you want to block and wait for a reply, so they aren't getting an asynchronous error later on in your app. Imagine uploading a picture, typing your name, then half your address, and then getting a box popping up saying "YOUR PICTURE UPLOAD FAILED." Not a good experience. Now imagine if they go through the whole page to click "save", and you then display a "photo not uploaded" message. The problem with delaying is the user may have already mentally put their photos away, and might have to re-navigate their drive to find the picture again.