Quality Of Service

• 10.1. Introduction:
• Quality of service can be measured in terms of telephone call quality, lost
connections, customer satisfaction, connection time, cost and other factors.

• Quality of service stems from a basic human value : Time is precious.

• Many people become frustrated, annoyed, and angry due to lengthy or
unexpected system response times and slow display rates.
• Most users prefer to work more quickly than the computer allows.

• Second basic human value : Harmful mistakes should be avoided.

• If users work too quickly, they may learn less, read with lower comprehension,
commit more data entry errors, and make more incorrect decisions.

• Third quality of service : reduce user frustration.

• With long delays, users may become frustrated enough to make mistakes or give
up working.
• Eg : crashes that destroy data, software bugs that produce incorrect results and e-
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mail spam.
 10. Quality Of Service
10.2. Models of Response-time impacts :
Response time is defined as the number of seconds it takes from the moment
users initiate an action until the computer begins to present results on the display,
printer, loudspeaker or mobile device.
The user think time is the number of seconds during which users think before
initiating the next action.

Fig 10.2 Simple stages of action model of system response time and user think time

Fig 10.3 Model of system response time , user planning time and user think time.(More
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realistic)
 10.2. Models of Response-time impacts :

• In this simple stages of action model, users (fig 10.2)

(i) Initiate
(ii) Wait for the computer to respond
(iii) Watch while the results appear
(iv) Think for a while and initiate again

In a more realistic model, users plan while interpreting results , while

typing/clicking, and while the computer is generating results or
retrieving information across the network.(fig 10.3)

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 Models of response-time impacts

• Designers of response times and display rates in HCI must

consider:
– complex interaction of technical feasibility
– cost
– task complexity
– user expectations
– speed of task performance
– error rates
– error handling procedures

• Overall majority of users prefer rapid interactions

– Lengthy response times (15 seconds) are detrimental(harmful) to
productivity
– Rapid response times (1 second or less) are preferable, but can
increase errors for complex tasks

10-4
 Models of response-time impacts
• Display Rate
– Alphanumeric displays: The speed in characters per second at which
characters appear for the user to read
– World Wide Web Applications: Display rate may be limited by
network transmission speed or server performance

• Reading textual information from a screen is more difficult

than reading from a book
– Users relax when the screen fills instantly- beyond a speed where
someone may feel compelled to keep up

• Cognitive human performance would be useful for:

– making predictions
– designing systems
– formulating management policies

10-5
Tune World Wide Web applications to
improve performance

Designers can optimize web pages to reduce byte counts and numbers of files
or provide previews of materials available in digital libraries or archives
to help reduce the number of queries and accesses to the network 10-6
 Models of response-time impacts
Limitations of short-term and working memory

• Any cognitive model must emerge from an understanding of human problem-

solving abilities

• In George Miller’s classic paper, “Magic number seven - plus or minus two”,
Miller identified,
– The average person can rapidly recognize seven chunks of information at a time
– This information can be held for 15 to 30 seconds in short-term memory
– Size of the chunks depends on the person' s familiarity with the material

• Short-term memory and working memory are used in conjunction for processing
information and problem solving
– Short-term memory processes perceptual(aware of things through the senses)input
– Working memory generates and implements solutions

• People learn to cope with complex problems by developing higher-level concepts

using several lower-level concepts brought together into a single chunk
• Short term and working memory are highly volatile
– Disruptions(disturbance/trouble) cause loss of memory
– Delays require that memory be refreshed
10-7
 Models of response-time impacts
Source of errors

• Solutions to problems must be recorded to memory or implemented

– Chance of error increases when solutions are recorded

• When using an interactive computer system users may formulate plans and have
to wait for execution time of each step

Conditions for optimum problem solving

• Longer response time causes uneasiness in the user because the penalty for error
increases
• Shorter response time may cause the user to fail to comprehend the presented
materials
• Progress indicators shorten perceived elapsed time and heighten satisfaction:
– graphical indicators
– blinking messages
– numeric seconds left for completion

10-8
 Models of response-time impacts
Conditions for optimum problem solving (cont.)
• Rapid task performance, low error rates, and high satisfaction can come
from:
– Users have adequate knowledge of the objects and actions necessary for the
problem-solving task
– The solution plan can be carried out without delays
– Distractions are eliminated
– User anxiety is low
– There is feedback about progress toward solution
– Errors can be avoided or handled easily

• Other conjectures in choosing the optimum interaction speed

– Novices may exhibit better performance with slower response time
– Novices prefer to work at slower speeds
– With little penalty for an error, users prefer to work more quickly
– When the task is familiar and easily comprehended, users prefer more rapid
action
– If users have experienced rapid performance previously, they will expect in
future situations

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 Models of response-time impacts
• Researchers are extending models of productivity to
accommodate the realities of work and home
environments.
• Eg: e-mail messages, phone calls, request from fellow
workers, etc..

• Another useful functionality is to provide users with

feedback about the amount of time spent on various
tasks and a log(duration) of how they handled
interruptions.

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 10. 3. Expectations and Attitudes
10.3. Expectations and Attitudes :
Three primary factors influence users’ expectations and attitudes regarding response
time :
1. Previous experiences
2. Individual Personality Differences
3. Task differences

1. Previous experiences :
• People have established expectations based on their past experiences of the
time required to complete a given task.
• If a task is completed more quickly than expected, people will be pleased.
• But if a task is completed much more quickly than expected, they may become
concerned that something is wrong. Similarly, if a task is completed much more slowly
than expected, users become concerned or frustrated.

• Response-time choke : it slow down the system when the load(in network) was
light. This surprising policy makes the response time uniform over time and across
users, thus reducing complaints. 11
 10. 3. Expectations and Attitudes
An important design issue is the issue of rapid start-up. Users are annoyed if they
have to wait several minutes for a laptop or a digital camera to be ready for usage,
and consequently fast starts are a strong distinguishing feature in consumer
electronics.
2. Individual Personality Differences
These variations are influenced by many factors such as personality, cost, age,
mood, cultural context, time of day, noise and perceived pressure to complete
work.

3. Task differences
• For repetitive tasks, users prefer and will work more rapidly with short
response times.
• For complex tasks, users can adapt to working with slow response times with
no loss of productivity , but their dissatisfaction increases as response time
lengthen.
• An increasing number of tasks place high demands on rapid system
performance.
eg : 3D-animations, flight simulation and graphic design, video conferencing.
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 10. 4. User Productivity

10. 4. User Productivity:

Productivity - -
the ratio of the quantity and quality of units produced to the user per unit of time.

• The nature of the task has the strong influence on whether changes in response time alter
user productivity.

• A repetitive control task involves monitoring a display and issuing actions in response to
changes in the display.

• In a study of data-entry task, users adopted one of the three strategies, depending on the
response time.
• With response times under one second, users worked automatically without checking
whether the system was ready for the next data value. It leads to many errors as user typed
data values before the system could accept those values.

• With response times above two seconds, users monitored the display carefully to make sure
that the prompt appeared before they typed.
• In the middle ground of one to two seconds , user paced themselves and waited
appropriate amount of time before attempting to enter data values. 13
 10.5. Variability in Response time :

10.5. Variability in Response time :

• The more difficult issue is the effect of modest variations in response time.
• It may not be technically feasible to provide fixed short response time(such as 1
sec) for all actions, several researchers have suggested that the time be fixed for
classes of actions.

• Many actions could have a fixed response time of less than 1 second, other actions
could take 4 seconds and still other actions could take 12 seconds.
• Experimental results suggest that modest variations in response time do not
severely affect performance. Users are apparently capable of adapting to varying
situations.

• The physiological effect of response time is an important issue for stressful, long-
duration tasks such as air-traffic control, but it is also a concern for office workers
and sales personnel.

• Eg : higher error rates, higher systolic blood pressure.

• Fig 10.6. Error rates(pg: 419) 14
 10. Quality Of Service
10.6. Frustrating Experiences :
• QOS is usually defined in terms of network performance, but another perspective
is to think about the quality of user experiences.

• Frequent complaints include dropped network connections, application crashes,

long system response times, and confusing error messages.

• The major sources of problems were the popular applications for web browsing,
e-mail and word processing.

• Recommendations for reducing frustration include interface redesign, software

quality improvement and network reliability increases.

• Others : increased learning, careful use of services and self-control of their

attitudes.

• Effort to improve education through schools and workplaces could improve user
experiences. 15
 10. Quality Of Service
• E-mail has become the source of frustrating spam.

• Antispam legislation is being passed in many nations, but the internet’s international
reach and open policies limit the success of legal controls.

• User controlled spam filters also help, but the complexity of user control undermines
many users willingness to use these tools.

• Another problem : Malicious viruses that once installed on the machine, can destroy
data , disrupt usage, or produce a cancerous spread of the virus to everyone on the
user’s contact list.

• Most network service providers offer virus filters that stop known viruses, but
professional programmers must make weekly or even daily revisions to anti-virus
software. Eg : McAfee and Symantec.

• Box 10.1. Response-time guidelines (pg: 425)

• Box 10.2. Reducing user frustration
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