Dear Colleagues at AutoDesk,
I am a longtime programmer in Visual Studio, and use Inventor occasionally, mainly for Stress Analysis.
In the Stress Analysis module, the simulation progress bar tends to stop in midstream. There is no way to tell if it plans to stop for minutes or for hours. There is no estimated time to completion. In other words, the user has no idea what to expect.
I've often aborted simulations for which the progress bar has stopped at 75% for hours, due to a problem (usually of my own making) that needs correcting. That's time wasted, which a better Progress Bar feedback could eliminate.
Here is a discussion of "good practices" when implementing Progress Bars:
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/449594/Progress-Bars-Threads-Windows-Forms-and-You