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The Economic Value of Rapid Response Time (1982)

by unsignedqword on 10/8/16, 12:52 AM with 3 comments

  • by dredmorbius on 10/8/16, 1:32 AM

    The response time here is terminal/UI response to user inputs, not, say, HFT, though that might make for an interesting side discussion.

    There's a related set of discussions on Jakob Nielsen's Site Formerly Known as UseIT (now the vastly less memorable "nngroup.com"): "Response Times: The 3 Important Limits": https://www.nngroup.com/articles/response-times-3-important-...

    TL;DR: the limits are 0.1s, 1s, and 10s.

    Nielsen also notes that response can be too fast: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/too-fast-ux/

    A classic current example is of redrawn Web or application dialogs, in which the element under a pointer (mouse, finger, stylus) changes as the user is attempting to click it. An elegant solution I've seen suggested: that the UI register the click on the UI element which had occupied the spot 300ms PRIOR to the click.

    (Redrawn elements are a particular problem for visually, motor-control, or cognitively disabled users -- the changes are too fast and confusing to keep track of.)

    Website response times: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/website-response-times/

    Time scales in user experience: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/powers-of-10-time-scales-in...

    From 0.1s to 100 years.