4 ms·
This rule comes from UX design user studies. However, the actual rule is that people perceive an event happening within 100ms as "instantaneous". Or, in other w
by stebalien 9y ago
This rule comes from UX design user studies. However, the actual rule is that people perceive an event happening within 100ms as "instantaneous". Or, in other words, two events happening within 100ms of each other won't feel like distinct events. This doesn't mean that users won't notice the delay and it doesn't even mean users won't be frustrated by it, it's just a matter of human perception of distinct events in time.
Unfortunately, programmers/UX designers have a tendency to generalize this rule and use it to excuse slow user interfaces.
- tomxor 9y agoI rarely use transitions larger than 100ms in UX, I doubt i'm abnormal in not seeing the result as instantaneous (compared to no transition). On the other hand this certainly is not normal UX design, I am very irritated at how common excessively long transitions are used on the web... to the point that I actually have to wait for things to finish animating before I can interact with them, it feels so 90's like i'm supposed to be impressed with the transition rather than the transition to simply convey the introduction of something and then to get the hell out of the way (like it should).
- everheardofc 9y agoIt's about the attention span. If the animation or action happens within 100ms then it's percieved as very fast and has almost no negative effect on attention. If the action takes 1 second then it is merely percieved as fast but very noticeable. If an action takes more than roughly 3 seconds it's percieved as slow and you might lose the attention of your user. Just because you are below the threshold of 100ms doesn't mean that reducing it more isn't beneficial. It's just that you have alread captured the full attention of your users.