"Psychology of Performance"
summary
Argues that perception, not clock time, decides perceived speed and gives actionable numbers: 0.1s instantaneous, 1s keeps flow, 10s loses attention, and a page blink of an eye ≈ 300–400ms. Recommends progressive rendering (first-byte flush, chunked HTML/JS), minimize blocking CSS, prefetch likely resources, and show timely progress only when needed. Cites tests: web browsing logs show 122 frustrations (timeouts, 404s) vs 50 for email, page-turn experiment ~1.3–2s, and animation-timed AJAX that hides latency effectively.
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chapters (20)
- 0:00Start
- 5:44Time perception
- 10:07Remembered time
- 10:49Unpleasant memories
- 11:39It feels slower when...
- 13:19Effect of waiting
- 13:37Feels faster when...
- 14:36Flow
- 17:51RTT – response time test
- 18:09Blink of an eye
- 18:32Turning a page
- 19:54Progressive rendering
- 20:58Worst enemy?
- 23:53Too many indicators
- 25:08Progress indication
- 27:33Prefetch
- 29:50Intuitions lie
- 32:46Help remembered durations
- 35:03Too fast
- 35:23Distractimations
