We do a great deal of eCommerce research, design and development for clients, and one design element I am always fascinated by are progress bars. A progress bar is one of those "best practices" for a checkout process, which shows the user how many steps are in the checkout process, and what step they are currently on.

I always find myself searching for good examples of progress bars, and decided to devote significant time to seeing what was out there. It was interesting to see the ones that got creative, the ones that were downright boring and even the merchants that lacked a progress bar at all. Here is a gallery of what I found, in alphabetical order by merchant. Just click on the thumbnail to see the full-size version.

1-800-Flowers

Abercrombie

Amazon

Apple

Armani Exchange

Bare Necessities

Best Buy

Blue Nile

Buy.com

Cafe Press

Coach

Crate & Barrel

Crutchfield

Disney

Drugstore.com

eCampus

Endless

Evogear

Fossil

Free People

Fresh Direct

Godiva

Home Depot

Ikea

J. Crew

Jet Blue

Lego

LL Bean

Macy's

Oneida

QVC

Sears

Threadless

Victoria's Secret

Wal-Mart

Williams Sonoma

Yankee Candle Company

Interview with the Founder of Mint.com

Mint is one of the coolest, more well-done applications I've seen in a long time. And boy, what an ambitious market to go after. As an entrepreneur, I found this interview with founder Aaron Patzer quite inspirational.

Corporate Client Afflictions

Some hilarious illustrations of client interactions that are all too familiar for web developers. For help in avoiding these types of clients, see "Identifying Your Ideal Client".

Gone Indie - What it's Like to Work at Apple

I was very fascinated by this rare glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes at Apple, some of which is not that appealing. A great read with great insights about working in the corporate world.

Hidden Secrets of the Amazon Shopping Cart

This is a superb historical look at the Amazon shopping cart, and it's evolution through the years. Really great stuff.

How to live happily with a great designer

No one says things quite like Seth Godin. Digging into his archives, I thought this post on some things clients should know when working with a designer were right on.

I want to make it clear that I nor anyone on our team is bitter about any current client relationships. We have GREAT clients and love working with them. Regardless, I think Seth's thoughts are on the money, as usual.

Building a Web Application? Read this first.

Jakob Nielsen provides a top-10 list of mistakes made when building a web application. Some of them are more obvious than others, but always worth a refresher.

uTest- Pay-per-bug Testing Services

Put this in the "ideas I wish I thought of" category. uTest is a community of professional application testers. They will test your software for you, and you just pay for each bug found. Awesome.

Creating Glossy Test with CSS

Here's what I consider a really great idea for creating "glossy" text with CSS and the clever use of PNGs.

Finally, a rap song about SEO and design

Describing this video would not do it justice, just watch . . .

Have you ever heard or said the following?

"Oh I've just been so busy that I have not gotten to . . ."

Then fill in the blank. We have all been on both ends of that sentence at some point. The problem with "busy" is that it is a cop out; an excuse in disguise. It's as if the person is not only making an excuse, but feeling a sense of self-pity at the same time, without ever truly addressing the needs of the person with whom they are speaking.

Translation . . . "I clearly chose not to make it a priority. This is not as important as the other things I have going on." Sounds harsh, doesn't it? Fact is, we all have the same 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. We make time for what we consider to be important. Period. Being "too busy" for something is not so much a lack of time, just the inability to make it a priority.

My point is that being "busy" is no way to Win Friends and Influence People. Hopefully you can see how a statement like the one above can rub someone the wrong way, or make them feel unimportant. And that should never be the goal in any relationship. When we let others down, how we communicate in that moment is crucial on a number of levels. It's always better to face personal responsibility head-on and just be honest. No one likes excuses.