AI UX / TRUST · ELVA
Make a slow AI system understandable, not magically busy.
By Andrei VolkRole at the company: Head of Product · Elva · 2026
Tie progress messages to truthful generation states instead of showing generic magic-in-progress chrome.
Selected result: ~30 sec · typical generation
Video generation usually took around 30 seconds and could occasionally approach two minutes. A static “magic in progress” screen gave users little indication whether the product was actually working.
I designed a state-driven narrator tied to real generation stages such as analysis, story, music, visuals, captions and finalisation. We deliberately kept the first release narrow: short text status messages, shipped to all users, without TTS or simulated conversation.
Making the wait understandable
- typical generation
- ~30 sec
- long-tail scenario
- ~2 min
- users received the new status experience
- 100%
Generations increased by roughly 20% period over period after launch, but because the feature was not isolated in an experiment, I treat that as a directional signal rather than a causal result.