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https://www.fastcodesign.com/3061519/evidence/the-ux-secret-that-will-ruin-apps-for-you
companies introduce what Kowitz calls an "artificial waiting" pattern into their interfaces. These are status bars, maybe a few update messages, to construct a facade of slow, hard, thoughtful work, even though the computer is done calculating your query.
[...] "My guys built this tool—it took single digit milliseconds to get the results back. And it was giving [accurate] results, not just some plan we wanted to sell them," Hoober says. "But when we tested with people, they assumed it was all marketing bullshit because it was instantaneous. They'd say, 'This was obviously a canned result, I'm just gonna shop myself.'"
"Coinstar is a great example of this. The machine is able to calculate the total change deposited almost instantly. Yet, during testing the company learned that consumers did not trust the machines. Customers though it was impossible for a machine to count change accurately at such a high rate. Faced with the issues of trust and preconceived expectations of necessary effort, the company began to rework the user experience. The solution was fairly simple. The machine still counted at the same pace but displayed the results at a significantly slower rate. In fact, the sound of change working the way through the machine is just a recording that is played through a speaker. Altering the user experience to match expectations created trust and met the customers expectation of the necessary effort to complete the task."
Not long ago I removed a delay in some old software that didn't seem to do anything (it still works and works faster). Perhaps I should add the delay back...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @01:51AM
People need to know the truth about the speed and capabilities of today's technology. Don't add artificial delays to pacify the ignorant. The only delays you should ever add in software are delays necessary for it to function properly, e.g. game timing.
Anything else is deceptive and aimed to fool the already ignorant, making them even more ignorant by causing them to believe things take longer than they do.
Oh and...
I know someone's going to reply saying "well it was hurting their business, they gotta make money you know!".
Yeah I know. Capitalism is deceptive by nature. One of many reasons I consider myself a socialist.
I hear you, and the engineer in my agrees. However, we live in the real world, full of messy organic creatures and non-spherical cows. In terms of user enjoyment, quite literally perception affects the thing itself.
It's all well-and-good to say "give the users the truth," but that does no good if nobody actually uses the thing. I'm sure even a socialist like yourself can see the value in "giving people what they want."
I don't like how this turns out (I'd rather the faster experience myself), but I can easily imagine myself saying, "there's no way they searched every airline price that fast, this must be a trick." I don't really have much of a solution to this problem
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:10AM
> quite literally perception affects the thing itself.
Perception is reality.
As long as the delay doesn't piss me off, then so what? The difference between 100 milliseconds and 1000 milliseconds is nothing compared to the delay of inputting anything into whatever system we are talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @04:30PM
I think they're talking about 1000ms vs. 18,000ms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:59AM
So the masses prefer delays but what amount of delay? How many milliseconds or seconds for an airline search?
Maybe naive users prefer slower stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVS5-GQ91vo [youtube.com]
While advanced users don't need stuff that slow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjvMhrx0FQ8 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @03:54AM
On a small scale that may seem fine and all, unfortunately it is that line of thinking that leads to people believing in magic sky fairies and then molesting their children in its name.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 03 2016, @03:59AM
On a small scale that may seem fine and all, unfortunately it is that line of thinking that leads to people believing in magic sky fairies and then molesting their children in its name.
Yeah, catering to the masses causes child molestation because the masses want to molest children.
Logic!!