My presentation from London's UX Crunch on designing for how we perceive, think, and talk about time. Please share your comments, or get in touch if you've any questions.

1. Andy Marshall, Head of User Experience
Designing for how we perceive, think, and talk about time
About time

2. In UX we sketch and wireframe
moments in a journey, but we
often neglect to think about
what happens in between those
moments.
Time is an often overlooked
element in the design process.
In this presentation we’ll
explore our perceptions of
time, and some approaches
and strategies when designing
with time in mind.

3. Perception And Attention
1

4. Perception And Attention
Let’s start with exploring what is within the
realms of our perception and understanding.

5. ThePitchDropExperiment
In 1927 Thomas Parnell of Queensland University heated a
substance called pitched, poured it into a glass jar, then left
it to cool down. For three years.
Pitch is a viscoelastic polymer. So even though it looks
motionless, it is in fact pouring through the glass jar, albeit
very slowly - it drips about once every 12 - 15 years.
This may be an extreme example, but when things move
this slowly we simply have no perception of change.
Watch The Pitch Drop Experiment live (only 14 years to go!):
www.thetenthwatch.com

6. Let’s look at something with a shorter duration
Can you spot the change happening in the
following video?

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nL5ulsWMYc

8. changeblindness
Changeblindness
It’s not just change happening over 12 - 15 years we can’t perceive. Surprisingly we struggle
to perceive changes happening over as little as 10 or 12 seconds, a phenomena known as
Change Blindness.
seconds

9. limitsofattention
Limitsofattention
It’s often said your homepage should load within 8 seconds. There’s good reason for this -
when interacting with websites our attention is typically limited at around 7 to 10 seconds.
As a result you should notify users every 10 seconds or so with more prolonged interactions.
seconds

10. conversation
seconds
Conversationspeed
In a typical conversation the to and fro varies from 2 - 5 seconds as two people exchange information.
Responses of less than 2 seconds lead to, “They answered that without thinking”, whilst those longer than
5 seconds lead to,“Why did they have to think about that so much?” or “They’re not paying attention to me”.
Too fast or too slow can create a sense of mistrust.
We’re incredibly comfortable interacting at between 2 - 5 seconds. As a general rule interactive systems
should be designed to respond within this timeframe. The to and fro of information between a system
and a user at this speed creates a natural, responsive, and trusting experience.

11. From seconds to milliseconds
At an even shorter duration, how quickly do we
perceive things around us?
Let’s follow the journey of light from an object
entering your eye, to your becoming aware of
what you’re looking at.

12. Thequickestroutetoperception
milliseconds
Light bounces off a bottle and enters your eye. After 200ms electrical
signals from the eye have reached the middle of your brain.

13. Thequickestroutetoperception
milliseconds
Another 200ms and the signal has reached the back
of your brain where you’ve started processing vision.

14. Thequickestroutetoperception
milliseconds
Back to the middle then bottom of your brain
where you decode shape, contrast, and edges.

15. Thequickestroutetoperception
milliseconds
Electrical signals pass to the front of the
brain where we realise, “Oh, I see a bottle”.

16. Thequickestroutetoperception
Visual may be the quickest route to perception, but it still takes about half a second
before you’re actually aware of what you’re looking at.
We think we operate in realtime, but in fact we’re constantly operating about
a half a second behind realtime.
milliseconds

17. milliseconds
Thequickestroutetoaresponse
Some of our automatic responses are even quicker.
A loud, sudden, and unexpected noise can cause our spinal
neurons to respond in just 50ms.
This is several hundred milliseconds before we’re consciously
aware of the event that just happened.

18. Design interactions at the
pace of conversation
Longer durations fall
outside of perception
and attention.
Short durations, too
short to be perceived
seconds
Theproblemareasforinteractiondesign

19. Design Considerations
2

20. Design Considerations
Now we’ve looked at some of the limitations of
our perception and awareness, how should we
design with these in mind?

21. Dealingwithlongerdurations
+
1. Anyinteractionwhichwilltakelongerthan10secondsdeservesmessaging
-spinningwheelsarenotsufficient
2. Thelongertheduration,theless approximateweneedtobewithdurations
3. Whenwetalkintime,usenumberswearefamiliarwith
-1,2,3,5,10,15,20,30

22. –
1. Thespeedoftechnologyoutstripsusbutnewtechnologyisperceivedas“toogoodtobe
true”andcreatesmistrust
2. Consideraddinganartificialdelayinyourfeedbacklooptoallowourslower,human
brainstoperceivechangeandinteractions
3. Considerprolongedmessaging,forinstanceshowingthemessage“Documentsaved”
for5seconds,eventhoughthedocumentmayhaveactuallysavedin40milliseconds
Dealingwithshortdurations

23. Performance Improvement
3

24. Performance Improvement
In UX we’re often asked to address timing issues, such as
interactions that take too long, or through feedback that’s been
received from customers about a painfully slow interaction.
From the service and retail industries there are three
strategies we can adopt to tackle the challenge of
improving the experience of time.

25. 1. Makesubstantialchangestothewaybusinessisconducted
-OperationalManagement
2. Provideadistraction,divertattention
-PerceptualManagement
3. Focusonmakingthecustomermoretolerantofinevitablewaitsordelays
-ToleranceManagement
Threestrategiesforimprovingperformance

26. Operational Management
Operational Management is about investing in a system, platform,
or area of a business to help improve performance.
This should always be the first strategy to consider when looking
to make a performance improvement, though cost can be a
limiting factor.
The following are examples of Operational Management in action.

27. OperationalManagement
The introduction of the Blu-ray
format in game consoles has led
to the increase in file and data
sizes of games, leading to longer
and longer installation times.
To avoid gamers becoming more
and more frustrated whilst
waiting for a new game to install,
Sony introduced a feature in the
PlayStation 4 allowing gamers to
begin playing the game as the
remainder installs.
This feature is the result of an
investment in the software and
hardware of a system to reduce
waiting times.

28. OperationalManagement
Fewer companies have analysed
the psychology of queues and
waiting more than Disney.
According to a New York Times
article, if a popular ride like
Pirates of The Caribbean is too
slow, the Disney command centre
gives the order to release more
boats.
This shows an investment by
Disney in having more facilities
and staff on stand-by, which they
can roll out, when required.

29. OperationalManagement
40 seconds
I once worked on a dashboard
that reports on the health of
devices across a global network.
A requirement was for the system
to ping all devices on the network
to retrieve a report on the health
of each device.
Global networks can have many
thousands of devices, so results
would take about 40 seconds to
appear on the dashboard.
An Operational Management
approach to reducing this wait
would require very high costs to
replace expensive technology.

30. How much time saving is enough?
Applying an Operational Management approach raises
important questions such as, “What do we need to change
to make the desired reduction in time?”, and“How much
will the investment cost?”.
The question you should start with is:
How much difference in time is perceivable?

31. OperationalManagement
“Just-noticeabledifference”
Weber’s20%Rule
Weber’s ratio of 20% is a good
rule of thumb to use.
We only perceive differences in
time when they are increased
or decreased by 20% or more.

32. OperationalManagement
2010 2012
Here’s an example to illustrate.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver
published “Jamie’s 30 Minute
Meals”, later followed with
“Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals”.
In time savings a 15 minute meal
is half the time it takes to make
a 30 minute meal, or 50% of
the time, which far exceeds a
20% saving, and is therefore a
perceivable difference according
to Weber’s ratio.
Had Jamie Oliver published
“Jamie’s 25 Minute Meals” it would
have been a different story. A
16.6% saving would have been less
than a 20% saving, and would have
therefore been imperceivable.

33. OperationalManagement Applying Weber’s 20% Ratio to our
dashboard with its 40 second wait,
a 20% reduction in waiting would
create a perceivable difference,
so the desired wait would have
to be 32 seconds or less to be
considered a worthwhile
investment.
Anything higher than this, for
instance, 35 seconds, would be
imperceivable, and therefore
not a good investment.
Incidentally this works both ways.
If introducing analytics increases
the delay, providing this is within
a 20% increase, it won’t have
a perceivable difference on the
experience.
40 seconds

34. 1. Makesubstantialchangestothewaybusinessisconducted
-OperationalManagement
2. Provideadistraction,divertattention
-PerceptualManagement
3. Focusonmakingthecustomermoretolerantofinevitablewaitsordelays
-ToleranceManagement
Threestrategiesforimprovingperformance

35. Perceptual Management
Perceptual Management is an approach that focusses on
distractions and techniques to influence a customer’s perception of
the passing of time and as you’ll see from the examples that follow
this is a commonly used strategy.
Note that the more a customer is exposed to a distraction, the less
effect it has on them so Perceptual Management should only be
considered for less frequent interactions.

36. PerceptualManagement
There are inevitable delays when
eating out; from arriving at a
restaurant and waiting for a table,
to being seated and then waiting to
order and receive your meal.
Visit an Honest Burger on a busy
day without a reservation where
delays can be up to as much as an
hour, and they’ll add your details
to their booking system, which will
send you an alert when your table
is ready.
This frees you up from staying in
the restaurant to go shopping or
have a drink nearby, distracting
you from the experience of the
wait for a table.

37. PerceptualManagement We touched on Disney’s approach
to Operational Management,
earlier, but they also employ
Perceptual Management to
overcome the challenge of waiting
times in queues.
The sight of a long queue is
demoralising, so every Disney
ride has a serpentine queue that
winds through a number of
staged distractions.
Staff keep customers engaged up
and down queues, and some
experiences have more specific
set pieces to distract waiting
customers, such as the special
effects waiting room for the
Haunted Mansion.

38. PerceptualManagement
One commonly used distraction
is the use of televisions and
radios in waiting rooms.
Visit a Post Office, and chances
are you’ll find yourself watching
a well positioned television,
distracting you from the often
long wait.
This technique has also made its
way into healthcare, and
televisions are now a common
site in hospital and surgery
waiting rooms.

39. PerceptualManagement Stepping off a flight at an airport
leads to an inevitable wait for your
luggage to be taken from the plane
and arrive into the building for you
to collect.
Rather than have you step off the
plane and stand for 8 - 10 as you
wait for your luggage, many
airports employ Perceptual
Management through having you
step off the plane then walk
through a complex route of
corridors within the airport to
reach the luggage collection point.
It takes the same time to be
reunited with your luggage, but the
short walk distracts you from the
experience of waiting for your
luggage to arrive.

40. PerceptualManagement
Waiting for content to load is all
part of the experience when
interacting with apps or
websites.
The loading animations and
spinning wheels found in apps
and websites are examples of
Perceptual Management.
These signify that activity is
taking place, but they also occupy
your time with distractions as
content is loaded.

41. PerceptualManagement
Another often used Perceptual
Management technique is
displaying messaging in apps
and websites as your customer
waits for content to load content.
Dedicating time to reading this
type of messaging distracts you
from the wait for the actual
content to load.
Slack is shown here displaying
messages as the desktop
application starts up
and loads content.

42. 1. Makesubstantialchangestothewaybusinessisconducted
-OperationalManagement
2. Provideadistraction,divertattention
-PerceptualManagement
3. Focusonmakingthecustomermoretolerantofinevitablewaitsordelays
-ToleranceManagement
Threestrategiesforimprovingperformance

43. Tolerance Management
Tolerance Management doesn’t attempt to disguise the duration
of waiting, but instead sets out to make customers more tolerant
of the delay.
Tolerance for any duration is subjective and relative to the situation.
For example, a 10 minute delay in travelling to an appointment
you’re already 15 minutes late for is far more painful than a 10
minute delay following a 3 day wait for a parcel to be delivered.

44. ToleranceManagement
Amazon offer next day delivery,
and are very transparent about
how they will compensate
you if they fail to deliver to
their promise.

45. ToleranceManagement
During the installation of an
operating system, communicating
the ongoing process is crucial as
users are typically unable to
perform any tasks on the
computer until the operating
system has fully installed.

46. ToleranceManagement Returning the dashboard example,
Operational Management wasn’t
a viable solution due to costs.
Perceptual Management was also
not viable due customers using the
system multiple times throughout
the day.
Tolerance Management was the
recommended strategy in dealing
with delays in waiting for reports to
be retrieved.
Techniques implemented included
messaging that reminded
customers of the complexity of the
task of pinging the many thousands
of devices on their network, and
multitasking was supported,
allowing customers to perform
other tasks as content was loaded.40 seconds

47. Key Takeaways
4

48. 1. We’remostcomfortablewith2-5secondinteractions
2. Forinteractionswithdurationsabove10secondssetexpectationswithclearmessaging
3. Usenumberswe’remostfamiliarwithwhendescribinglongerdurations
4. Peoplecanmistrusttechnologywhenitmovestooquicklyforthem
-considermessagingorintroducingartificialdelaysinyourfeedbackloops
5. UseOperationalManagementwhenyoucanimproveasystemtoimprove
theexperienceoftime,keepinginmindWeber’s20%Ratio
6. Forlessfrequentinteractions,usePerceptualManagementtomanipulate
perceptionsoftime
7. UseToleranceManagementbysettingexpectationsclearly,remindingcustomers
oftheimportanceorcomplexityofatask,andsupportmultitaskingwherepossible.
Keytakeawayswhendesigningwithtime

49. Thank you
andy.marshall@rufusleonard.com
rufusleonard.com
@andy__marshall