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posted by martyb on Saturday September 03 2016, @12:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-add-no-genuine-delays dept.

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.'"

http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2010/12/16/adding-delays-to-increase-perceived-value-does-it-work/

"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...


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  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:45PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Saturday September 03 2016, @02:45PM (#397027)

    Windows 95 didn't come out with automatic updates. That was introduced later and popularized in the release of Windows 98, I thought... Windows NT 4.0 (both server and workstation) didn't have automatic updates, either -- those were the days when someone actually made a thoughtful decision as to if they would install the patches, and how many of them, and on what hardware.

    By leaving it up to me, it was both the fastest and slowest method out of them all! Because if I cared it would take a while while I did my research, and if I felt lucky I just pressed the buttons and hoped for the best, based on previous experiences or blind trust/faith that the update would work.

    From what I have heard about the updates in windows 10, none of my strategies are applicable.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Saturday September 03 2016, @06:34PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Saturday September 03 2016, @06:34PM (#397083) Journal

    Windows 95 didn't come out with automatic updates. That was introduced later and popularized in the release of Windows 98, I thought... Windows NT 4.0 (both server and workstation) didn't have automatic updates, either -- those were the days when someone actually made a thoughtful decision as to if they would install the patches, and how many of them, and on what hardware.

    Actually, true "automatic updates" didn't happen until Windows ME [wikipedia.org]. Windows 98 had a "Critical Update Notification Tool" which could be installed to check the Windows Update server periodically for "critical" updates, but it wasn't until ME that "automatic updates" that downloaded by themselves happened. Even then, I'm not sure precisely when the feature to "install automatically" happened -- I believe you were still prompted in ME first. The auto install feature may not have happened until XP (?).