4 ms·

I spent a lot of time on the early 90s looking at building faster graphics hardware - started out grabbing a lot of data. #1 thing we figured out is that 'raw

I spent a lot of time on the early 90s looking at building faster graphics hardware - started out grabbing a lot of data. #1 thing we figured out is that 'raw performance' and 'perceived performance' are two very different things - we were selling raw performance, customers were buying perceived performance - perceived performance is sort of an S-shaped curve, on the left there's a flat area where it's too slow, increase it a bit, it's still to slow, in the middle there's an area where performance changes are very noticeable, and on the right there's another flat area where it's fast enough. Getting to that middle bit first was where we made our money, once we hit the rightmost bit we were mostly waiting for the competition to catch up. Anyway the real point I'm trying to make here is that what you're aiming for is that 'fast enough' spot, not 'fastest' - for everything, it's worth spending time benchmarking to figure out what is slow (spending the time watching someone else use it is time well spent)

_the_inflator 2y ago
Yes, I totally agree. Raw vs perceived aka deceiving performance. My advice: work with an old Apple computer and put this against a brand new super giga overclocked Windows hardware monster. Apple focuses exactly on perceived performance first and foremost. On all my devices - MacBook Pro 13 from 2013, MacBook Air 2018, iPhone 6 - one thing is always smooth no matter what: UI interaction and transitions. I read a lot about Apple and Google engineering and I remember that they put a priority on perceived performance first. I think there is a 300ms seconds threshold under which optimization brings in no additional benefit, however massive discomfort above this limit in that humans perceive animations as jerky, which leads to feelings of discomfort. Jobs demanded that Apple Safari had a one or two second rule AFAIK, so that any new feature must not slow down opening up time. Displays and chip design is also aimed at this perceived performance metric. Windows always appears jerky and laggy to me, no matter the age or raw performance the machine got, while any Apple device is guaranteed to feature smooth UI interaction no matter CPU load. I love it and as a product manager it became a mantra for my enterprise software SaaS platform a mantra as well. Customers love it, they feel taken care of. And that’s great.
- Taniwha 2y ago
  FWIW we were building some of the first mac graphics accelerators when we were doing the above work - 24-bit graphics were new, and too slow to be usable on the original Mac 2s (that too slow plateau) - in part it was because the software guys were pissing it away - Microsoft in particular did stupid stuff - sometimes excell would erase a window 7-8 times before it ever drew any useful pixels
- megamalloc 2y ago
  For direct user interactions (such as opening a combo box) the threshold of perception is actually much closer to 30ms than 300ms. 300ms is usable but far from a pleasure to use. I found myself interacting with a Windows Server 2008 VM the other day (don't ask!) and was astonished how snappy the UI was, relative to today's machines (Windows or Mac).

_the_inflator 2y ago

Yes, I totally agree. Raw vs perceived aka deceiving performance. My advice: work with an old Apple computer and put this against a brand new super giga overclocked Windows hardware monster. Apple focuses exactly on perceived performance first and foremost. On all my devices - MacBook Pro 13 from 2013, MacBook Air 2018, iPhone 6 - one thing is always smooth no matter what: UI interaction and transitions. I read a lot about Apple and Google engineering and I remember that they put a priority on perceived performance first. I think there is a 300ms seconds threshold under which optimization brings in no additional benefit, however massive discomfort above this limit in that humans perceive animations as jerky, which leads to feelings of discomfort. Jobs demanded that Apple Safari had a one or two second rule AFAIK, so that any new feature must not slow down opening up time. Displays and chip design is also aimed at this perceived performance metric. Windows always appears jerky and laggy to me, no matter the age or raw performance the machine got, while any Apple device is guaranteed to feature smooth UI interaction no matter CPU load. I love it and as a product manager it became a mantra for my enterprise software SaaS platform a mantra as well. Customers love it, they feel taken care of. And that’s great.

Taniwha 2y ago
FWIW we were building some of the first mac graphics accelerators when we were doing the above work - 24-bit graphics were new, and too slow to be usable on the original Mac 2s (that too slow plateau) - in part it was because the software guys were pissing it away - Microsoft in particular did stupid stuff - sometimes excell would erase a window 7-8 times before it ever drew any useful pixels
megamalloc 2y ago
For direct user interactions (such as opening a combo box) the threshold of perception is actually much closer to 30ms than 300ms. 300ms is usable but far from a pleasure to use. I found myself interacting with a Windows Server 2008 VM the other day (don't ask!) and was astonished how snappy the UI was, relative to today's machines (Windows or Mac).