Real-Time UX Patterns

LiveView makes real-time technically easy. The hard part is UX: making interactions feel instant, handling concurrent users gracefully, and degrading smoothly when connections fail. This skill covers the UX patterns, not the plumbing.

The Five UX Challenges of Real-Time

1. Latency — The round trip to the server is perceptible. How do you make it feel instant?
2. Presence — Multiple users are here. How do you show who, where, and what they're doing?
3. Conflicts — Two users changed the same thing. Who wins? How does the loser know?
4. Disconnection — The WebSocket dropped. What does the user see? What happens to their work?
5. Loading — Data isn't here yet. What does the user see while waiting?

Core Principles