The 5 Rules of Time Perception

Downtimes in customer journeys are sometimes inevitable. That doesn’t mean

they shouldn’t be crafted with care. So if you want to avoid losing your users
during critical steps, follow these rules.

1. Action
Avoid passive pauses. There’s a big difference between busy time and
time spent waiting. Don’t let users “watch the soup come to a boil”. For
example, some airports move their arrival gates further away from the
baggage claim on purpose. That’s because time spent walking feels
faster than time spent waiting around the baggage carousel.

2. Expectation
Let users know how long they’ll be waiting. If it’s hard to do because of a
complex product process, try to underpromise and overdeliver. For
example, restaurants often overestimate the wait time, so that if they
beat the estimate, you are pleasantly surprised.

3. Explanation
Don’t just apologize for the waiting period. Explain and educate your
customer so that they can empathically conclude that the waiting period
is fair, normal, and reasonable.

4. Perception
People trust and value things more when they see the underlying work. If
your users have high expectations for a step (e.g., migration, analysis,
reporting), they become skeptical if the calculation time is too short.
That's why introducing a well-designed "labor" screen right after a key
action can improve your user experience. For instance, imagine going to
a fancy 5-star restaurant, ordering your food, and getting your plate 20
seconds later… that'd be weird, right?

5. Education
Waiting periods are rare periods of undivided attention (the extreme
example being urinals ad). Use them to educate your customers to
improve their experience and motivate them for the upcoming steps.