In other parts of this same product I'm working on, they have 
something like this (rendered poorly in this email message):
                  o o O o o o
where the bigger graphic represents the current step. There aren't 
any numbers, just empty and filled-in squares.

It's vague enough to possibly cover lots of possibilities. It's a 
little unclear that it's a stepwise indicator rather than a 
decoration. We'll test it in the next study.

                                         -- hs


--------At 03:58 PM 3/12/2009, Hilary Bienstock wrote:
>Has anyone solved this problem by using a loading bar to visually 
>represent progress, rather than explicitly conveying the number of 
>steps?  That might be a way to treat the problems that Claire 
>mentioned where the number of steps can vary, and could also allow 
>you to get rid of the issue of whether your process is one step per 
>screen or not, since you are not explicitly calling out steps.  Any 
>feedback on that?

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