the time it takes a UI to respond to an action by the user and the effect this has on UX.
80
votes
15answers
24k views
Is coffee a good excuse for a slow application start-up time?
I was dragged into a meeting with a client to consult on any usability issues as we watched a user performing day-to-day operations with a software application.
The first thing that happened was that ...
78
votes
16answers
7k views
Is Google Instant good or bad UX?
For power users, it clearly saves time in some circumstances. It also jumps around alot and does things that are very different than before. One person said it is like a guy who finishes your ...
38
votes
7answers
2k views
Would intentionally slowing down UI help to increase sales on shopping sites?
I've noticed that iTunes store is always slow, at first I thought it's just because iTunes is a bloatware (which it is, on both Mac and Windows.) However I started to wonder whether this is ...
34
votes
16answers
1k views
How long should a page take to load?
Back in 1997 Jacob Nielsen was suggesting:
Currently, the minimum goal for response times should therefore be to get pages to users in no more than ten seconds
Obviously expectations have sped ...
26
votes
7answers
962 views
How patient are users at wait dialogs?
What is the length of time the average user will wait at a wait indicator (i.e. a spinning circle, beach-ball-of-death, egg-timer) before they think something has gone wrong?
If anybody can point to ...
24
votes
10answers
882 views
Should aspects such as page render time or time taken to retrieve results be considered part of UX?
I was just reading this very interesting article on Fast Company about how How One Second delay Could Cost Amazon $1.6 Billion In Sales annually. To quote the article
Amazon's calculated that a ...
23
votes
4answers
6k views
What are the best practices for background images?
We are placing a large, non-repeated background image. It's very heavy; takes up almost 60% of the page load time. If you visit MSN or other high profile sites, they are using repeated background ...
22
votes
2answers
442 views
Defining “Instantaneous” as part of usability acceptance criteria
The Setup
I have run into this problem time and time again. An interface is performing slow and QA and/or Engineering come back and ask, "can you please define the acceptance criteria for how fast ...
21
votes
8answers
1k views
How can I distract / entertain people in an app while waiting?
We should do whatever we can to make our apps and websites as fast as possible, but there are some times when there is nothing that we can do to speed up some process, and so our customers just have ...
20
votes
4answers
1k views
What is an acceptable response time for my ajax ui?
When I have to load new information from my web server via ajax after a user action, how fast should the information be displayed for the user in order to be a good working UI for the user?
20
votes
5answers
582 views
Will faster GUI always make one more efficient?
Are there any studies on whether one will actually get more done during a days work if delays went down i. e. from 10 ms to 5 ms for each update. My point is that if we are already working at the ...
14
votes
6answers
510 views
What is more pleasing to the eye fade in or suddently appear
I have a pop up menu. What is said to be easier on the users' eyes? Should I just have it appear immediately using visibility = true or should I have it fade in using opacity animation?
14
votes
3answers
629 views
Is it bad design to hide a form's success message after a short time?
I was working on a non profit site www.gettingtoknowcancer.org and one of the requirements was to have a subscribe form on the right.So I created the subscribe form like this
which when clicked ...
13
votes
5answers
388 views
Automatic UI without explicit “perform action” controls
Having seen a number of examples over the years I've been wondering where this kind of interfaces stand today.
What I mean by "automatic UI" is the following.
Normally on screens, dialogues and web ...
13
votes
3answers
292 views
A single, long load - or multiple short loads, which would provide a better experience?
I have a very large, modular web application.
When it starts I can do things one of three ways:
A moderately long load time (about 60 seconds) to fetch all of the modules from the server (presented ...
13
votes
3answers
820 views
How to measure UI lag on computer?
Are there any tools available to help measure the UI lag of a given application running on a given computer?
There are plenty of guidelines out there as to how "fast" a UI ought to be, but how can I ...
10
votes
6answers
508 views
If you can't improve loading time, is distracting the user a good technique?
On several implementations I've worked with, loading times can be as high as four seconds for the start page. When all reasonable options are done, is it possible to distract the user to make the ...
9
votes
5answers
612 views
UI Lag: What's considered “smooth”?
I'm building a drawing application that let's users annotate images and diagrams in a freehand style.
Not unlike a glorified MS Paint program, but there is heavy background processing going on.
...
9
votes
8answers
1k views
Fast-loading splash screen or flashy, progress-based splash screen? [closed]
This is a fairly subjective question, but in my opinion most discussion on UX is at least a little subjective.
So basically I could choose a fast-loading splash screen that essentially displays an ...
9
votes
4answers
298 views
What modern human-technology interactions have been ingrained into your mind, so that you expect them?
During the course of my day, I have noticed human-technology interactions that have become so normal to me, that I have committed them to muscle-memory. Here are two examples:
When attempting to ...
8
votes
8answers
434 views
What to display while waiting for a process (4-5 seconds) to complete?
We realized that in some cases the user may be waiting up to 4 or 5 seconds (depending on connection) for their form (or some action) to be processed. The form involves getting data from other servers ...
8
votes
4answers
267 views
How can I maintain usability on a slow system?
Obviously a huge part of a positive UX is a fast, responsive design. The software I work with (Electronic Medical Records) is sometimes used on sub-standard devices (e.g. ancient desktop PCs) or in ...
8
votes
4answers
145 views
Amount of Time To Determine a User Has Stopped Typing
I have a filter form for a list. One of the fields is a text search field. When a user types in the field, I wait until the user has stopped typing for a half second (500 milliseconds), and then ...
8
votes
3answers
436 views
Does a “faster” loading indicator make website/software seem faster?
While checking how a site works on Internet Explorer, I noticed that the page loading indicator spins a lot faster than in other browsers. Also, the iPhone uses a noticeably slower activity indicator ...
8
votes
3answers
279 views
Load Fonts First or Last?
Fonts compete for available bandwidth and out of necessity have to be referenced as external files, rather than being inlined as can be done with essential CSS to avoid a FOUC (Flash of Unstyled ...
7
votes
3answers
151 views
How slow can an app be to keep feeling responsive?
I'm creating an editor to write requirements and I want to give suggestions to the user about what to write. How fast do I've to present the suggestion so that it feels responsive to the user. ...
7
votes
5answers
46 views
Recording website speed
Are there any excellent sites out there that evaluate a website's loading speed at different levels of Internet connection?
I have used this site in the past but the information is out of date and I ...
7
votes
2answers
226 views
Dynamic search results - a la google?
We've a few apps where I work that make use of content search.
EG, you can search for specific text within a document held in our system.
One thing we've been looking at is having the search start as ...
7
votes
2answers
183 views
Studies showing the impact of response time variability on user experience
Have there been any studies, or results, focusing on the impact of variability in latency of response times on the overall user experience?
I'm aware of the research on the "generally accepted" ...
6
votes
4answers
598 views
How long should the delay be before a tooltip pops up?
I'm working on web site in which a "ribbon" submenu pops up as soon as the mouse touches one of the main menu items. I'm trying to explain to the designer that it should wait until the cursor has ...
6
votes
2answers
123 views
Activity response, startup times
I'm interested in what is a reasonable start up time or behavior for applications on smart phones.
This is simply when you click an icon on the launcher (as it may be called on Android) to the moment ...
6
votes
3answers
145 views
Showing the status of an action on a button
I have an application that can synchronize content between a website and a social network.
with a button you can turn on and off the synchronization.
the user needs to see the status (sync on or off) ...
5
votes
4answers
119 views
How should cancelled animations behave?
How should an animation behave when it is cancelled/changed?
For example, let's say I have a button in my application that triggers the visibility of a tool panel. When the panel is shown, an ...
5
votes
2answers
154 views
When to commit user data (a humble request from a systems guy…)
So, I am a systems programmer working on a UI (bad idea, maybe, but I think I do ok all things considered). Anyway, my program is an interface to a service running on a remote machine which controls ...
5
votes
2answers
114 views
Benefits and drawbacks of modal windows
I'm working on a web application and am a little stuck trying to figure out how I should implement signup forms, login forms, contact forms, and payment forms. I can implement all these in either:
...
5
votes
3answers
212 views
Managing an App's Loading Time Expectations
I was recently asked to come up with a framework to benchmark loading time expectations based on the tasks being performed in the app.
I found that there were three categories in which I could define ...
4
votes
2answers
259 views
How to display UI operation delay
I am implementing some UI functionality. I have a button that perform some short or long (time) action. I have implemented so logic: if action's execution time more then some in milliseconds, then ...
4
votes
3answers
256 views
Assume success and show response immediately or wait for a response from the server?
All over my CMS I have buttons that toggle something on or off by sending an ajax request, updating the db, and then changes state and value of the button on success. Very basic "ajax" and "toggle". ...
4
votes
2answers
183 views
Empirical measures of performance
Other than time on task, error rates, memorability and use of help; what other empirical measures of performance can one measure an interface by?
Please expand your answers with real-world ...
4
votes
2answers
182 views
Why do websites use “you are being redirected…” pages?
Frequently after logging in a website - specially old ones - I see the following:
Welcome! You are being redirected, please click here if your browser
does not redirect you.
And similar pages ...
4
votes
1answer
120 views
UX in Optimisation and Simulation
As defined by IBM:
"[Optimization and Simulation products provide users with help
creating] the best possible plans, explore alternatives [and] understand
the trade-offs".
Based on the ...
4
votes
1answer
142 views
UI Guidelines when delivering application over Citrix
I'm after some advice regarding some guidelines to consider when deploying applications over Citrix.
My company is going to be using Citrix in the near future. We have suppliers who deliver our ...
4
votes
1answer
148 views
How Should Tabbed Content be Loaded?
There are several approaches to loading content inside tabs. For example,
Load all content initially, then just manipulate the DOM to show/hide tabs
Load only the content of the active tab ...
4
votes
2answers
151 views
Showing “in progress” in a full AJAX application when we don't know where the new content will be placed
I am building a web application that is fully AJAX enabled. Clicking a link will load the page from the server and some tricky javascript will determine which parts of the page will require replacing. ...
4
votes
3answers
123 views
How fast does autocomplete need to be for a good user experience? [duplicate]
Has there been any study into how quickly autocomplete suggestions need to show up for a good user experience?
3
votes
6answers
414 views
How can I improve the perceived performance of a desktop application?
We've build quite a 'large' and regrettably slow windows application for various financial planning business steps.
I'm currently trying to improve the performance of the application by slowly ...
3
votes
4answers
492 views
Behavior of auto-scrolling gallery
There's a small corporate website that offers a number of services.
On the homepage there's a showcase of the services offered. There's a strip containing a number of items in reduced form (small ...
3
votes
2answers
471 views
When should I use an ajax loader? When I wait more than 1 second, 2 seconds or 3 seconds?
In the web app I am working on right now we'll have some pages that will perhaps need more time to load. When should I use an ajax loader? After 1, 2 or 3 seconds?
3
votes
3answers
254 views
How much time is lost by waiting for GUI?
After asking the question Will faster GUI always make one more efficient?, I understood that there is a lower limit to the amount of time lost due to the GUI not responding. My interpretation of the ...
3
votes
2answers
127 views
Should options in a droplist be sorted by popularity or alphabetically?
I'm building a flexible search tool where the user can put together a query against one or many of a long list of fields to pull back a list of results. I was considering a TFS like query builder ...
