I’m watching a recording of Windows Phone Design Days, it’s the part about “perceived performance” with Jaime Rodriguez. He put up a nice table with response times and recommended visual feedback. I’ve seen these recommendations before. I’ve talked about these recommendations with my team. I’m insisting applying them every time when I see in out apps that an action has no visual response within one second after triggering it.
Even if it’s talking in context of User Experience on Windows Phone, I think these numbers are a formal guidance for good user experience on every device, modern gadget or software application.
I’ll make a copy of this table here, just to keep it in a handy place for further reference. It’s so well worth keeping it…
| system response time | duration | recommended feedback |
|---|---|---|
| instantaneous response | bellow 100 milliseconds | built in common controls |
| immediate response | between 500 milliseconds and 1 second | built in common controls |
| very short wait | 2 seconds or less | built in common controls |
| short wait | 2 to 5 seconds | progress bars |
| moderate wait | 5 to 10 seconds | progress bar with details like percentage completition or time remaining |
| long wait | 10 seconds or greater | progress bar with details of sub steps. Allow user to move to other tasks |
| continuous feedback | long process | progress bar with details of sub steps. Allow user to move to other tasks |
Read, remember & apply!