Reminds me when i was a kid back in the DOS days and made my own GUI system in Turbo Pascal on a 386DX machine i had. It had its own GUI library and simple applications and i had made it look kinda like Windows 95 (because i only had Win3.1 and i wanted 95 - though my take was based on screenshots i saw in magazines so it wasn't very faithful, just what i imagined to be).
The problem was, it was too fast. The shell was up and running pretty much once i pressed the enter key after typing the command in DOS. Real Windows didn't do that, so mine felt bad and fake (to me).
So i added some code in initialization to create and delete 1000 random files with some random delays between them (to cause the HDD to make "doing stuff" noises and its LED light to blink) and show a progress bar for it. After that it felt properly professional :-D.
TurboTax also allegedly adds delays to increase the perception that the work the product does is very technical and difficult (which, of course, is not true).
It may be effective (although I'm skeptical), but is the sort of manipulative bullshit that sends me running. Sites and applications that do this are very shady sites and applications.
You had better believe that companies with margins that thin are tracking absolutely everything, often regardless of what your answer to the GDPR popup is
I think that's more of pseudo-science. I've never heard anybody express any distrust for a service just because it's fast.
Let's say you go to a store and ask if they have a certain product. The clerk says "Sure, here it is". Is that worse than saying "Hmmm, I have to check in the warehouse first"?
A more suitable comparison might be this: envision yourself at a Michelin-starred restaurant, placing an order, only to have your meal instantly served. This leads to a crucial question: would you prefer to represent the immediacy of a fast-food establishment or the meticulousness of a Michelin-starred restaurant? Ultimately, HCI aims to create solutions that mirror the conceptual models of the real world.
Funny example! I used to work in a place like that, and we could make many plates extremely fast, and sometimes getting a head start from overhearing the clients order while they were still talking to the waiter. And yes, sometimes we would wait a little bit to get the food out, just because it would be weird for the client to get his food instantly.
But apart from that, clients usually appreciated getting their food about twice as fast as they would normally expect. As long as the quality is there, nothing is wrong with speed. And a restaurant is kind of a poor comparison, since cooking is always time dependent, while other goods can be ready for purchase at once.
My point is, context shapes the approach in computer interaction. Certain actions like ordering Uber involve wait and load times, while others don't. Theee is no one-size-fits-all solution. The system should harmonize with the user, bridging the gap between existing conceptual models.
If we go back to the original example. Some hotel booking aggregators still show the fake "Looking for best deals..." popup or screen. The largest aggregator Booking.com doesn't show any such thing, but instead loads the results as fast as it can.
As for disorienting, there are ways to avoid that without slowing the user down - I think in almost every situation or use case.
On the other hand I can imagine there being some sort of study that claims that having to "check the warehouse" makes the client now invested in the process and more likely to complete the sale.
I get it, sales and marketing are an essential part of doing business, you will not have a business if you can't sell anything. But it is an inherently evil practice, the whole goal is to coerce somebody into doing something they would not have other wise done. When kept to a moderate amount this is not a problem, the business sells things the customer gets things, everybody is happy. But sometime the marketing department can push thing to a very unhealthy level, psychological manipulation, dark patterns, obsessive tracking, etc.
Wrong analogy, imagine you ask where the butter is and they answer "aisle 14" and turn away before you even finish speaking. The butter might be there, but it will feel at least a little like they were saying anything to get rid of you.
Humans want things to operate at human speeds and computers are way faster than that.
If the software is fast, you ask for the butter and he puts it right in front of you. I say fast interactions and response is always better than slowness or fake loading screens.
This is all about implying serious work and complexity is taking place for some interaction there the user thinks there should be some.
PayPal used to have an entirely artificial five second wait between the user hitting "log in" and the browser sending the request because it raised perceived security in user testing.
Many banking apps will display "establishing secure connection" for a while for the same reason.
(Possibly paypal still have an artificial delay, but it's hard to tell given how badly the site works these days)
The problem was, it was too fast. The shell was up and running pretty much once i pressed the enter key after typing the command in DOS. Real Windows didn't do that, so mine felt bad and fake (to me).
So i added some code in initialization to create and delete 1000 random files with some random delays between them (to cause the HDD to make "doing stuff" noises and its LED light to blink) and show a progress bar for it. After that it felt properly professional :-D.