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I worked for a company that implemented a similar technique and it had positive results. The main features of one of their web based software products was a re

I worked for a company that implemented a similar technique and it had positive results. The main features of one of their web based software products was a report generator. The report was quite complex and included a lot of calculations based hierarchical relationships of entities in the system. To build this report by hand would probably take hours, but the queries and calculations were all highly optimized and could be run by the server almost instantly. Many users complained that they didn't like paying so much for this feature because it didn't really seem to be doing very much. Instead of trying to educate each individual customer about all the intricacies of the report they just added a dialog box that would display for ~10 seconds and step through a few fake progress messages. People stopped complaining about paying for the report, and I would assume that is because the progress messages made them feel like something complicated was happening.

dak1 14y ago
Why do stories like this make me depressed.
- craftkiller 14y ago
  because stories like those should make you depressed
- da02 14y ago
  I feel the same way. My guess: it's hard to consider adults are less curious than children, but more confident than children. In biology: maturity = stop of growth
- swalsh 14y ago
  Because (i'm guessing, since you're on HN) that you're an engineer. You spend all day telling the most logical thing ever created how to act. Its as predictable as a childrens television show. Human psychology is irrational, and thus unpredictable. The engineer psyche doesn't like that.
  - oh_sigh 14y ago
    Human psychology is irrational and unpredictable only for very narrow definitions of rationality. Just because we don't understand the brains operation doesn't mean it doesn't behave rationally
    - edmccard 14y ago
      Those definitions of rationality are useful _because_ they are narrow. If you redefine "rational" to mean "how the brain operates", you might be able to stop using the word "irrational", but...all the phenomena that previously fell into the "irrational" category will still exist, and people will still want to discuss them, so you might as well just use the same word for them as everyone else does.
      - oh_sigh 14y ago
        The term "rational" is already well defined. I was claiming that the OPs understanding of the meaning of rationality was limited, not that the term rationality was narrow. There are many other words and phrases available for us to talk about this concept that are well understood and do not need to be redefined.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
paulhauggis 14y ago
I suppose it's the same mentality behind: "He's a manager..it doesn't seem like he's doing anything! His job is so easy!". You can replace "manager" with any management/leadership role.
- zobzu 14y ago
  Well, playing golf is hard!
  - stickbranch 14y ago
    And attending meetings.
zobzu 14y ago
We implemented a similar thing a few years ago at a company I worked at. We designed a very fast system zero-knowledge matching over zillion entries. It was way faster than the "competition" (which arguably were slow because they just never cared). It took a few hours instead of a few days to run, basically. While the results were 99.99% the same as from the slower solution, customers would think "it can't be right" or other things like that, and wouldn't trust the product. We'd just give the result a day later. Fighting with customers expectations is sometimes very hard.
- amalag 14y ago
  Then sell them the more advanced faster one for more money.
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    "Use our advanced cloud infrastructure to generate reports in under 8 hours!"
jd007 14y ago
This reminds of airport nowadays. They were getting a lot of complaints about the slow speed that checked luggage comes out of after landing, so they simply moved all arriving flights' gates to the furthest away possible from the luggage claiming area. People had to literally walk across the airport after they get off, but complaints about luggage speed dropped significantly.
- igrekel 14y ago
  Actually, if I remember well (ut can<t remember where I get that from), another reason was so that people walk a little while to let their back recover from slouching all the flight before they pickup their heavy suitcase. Meaning in the end they had to bring less people out on a wheelchair.
  - lizzard 14y ago
    Maybe you mean this as a joke, but I am a wheelchair user, and it is often really not fun to push myself through the airport. So.... your joke falls a bit flat.
    - gknoy 14y ago
      I don't think he was joking, but rather implying that people with stiff backs could be more likely to injure themselves.
    - igrekel 14y ago
      It wasn't a joke, I didn't explain myself properly. When some people pick up their heavy suitcase after slouching for a few hours, their back locks in and the airport has to put them in a wheelchair and take care of them and their luggage. Having people walk a few minutes more actually reduces the chances of that happening.
DanBC 14y ago
Now you've trained the users for the reduced app speed you can sell access to the advanced faster version.
nraynaud 14y ago
This is a serious marketing problem about perceived value in B2B entreprise stuff. We had the same kind of problem the product was really technological: 15 years of research, a prover, 6-7 PhD and stuff like that. But I decided to simplify the interface to a minimum, and every parameter tuning should be automatic. We ended up with just a few buttons in a toolbar and a few views embedded in an eclipse plugin. Then the customers where thinking that an "eclipse plugin is not worth 10k€", because the technology was hidden.
ZoFreX 14y ago
Can't find the article right now (help?) but Blogspot (now Blogger) can create blogs instantly - the loading spinner and wait are completely artificial, to assure users.
rachelbythebay 14y ago
This happens with old-fashioned customer support and technical troubleshooting, too. It seems to be the temporal equivalent of putting scrap metal in electronics to make them seem heavier and thus "more reliable". The more I hear about it, the more I believe it. I ran into this while doing phone and ticket support back in the day and tried to get my coworkers to join me in an experiment but they refused. We could have learned so much. I wrote about it: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/07/14/difficulty/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/07/14/difficulty/

dak1 14y ago

Why do stories like this make me depressed.

craftkiller 14y ago
because stories like those should make you depressed
da02 14y ago
I feel the same way. My guess: it's hard to consider adults are less curious than children, but more confident than children. In biology: maturity = stop of growth
swalsh 14y ago
Because (i'm guessing, since you're on HN) that you're an engineer. You spend all day telling the most logical thing ever created how to act. Its as predictable as a childrens television show. Human psychology is irrational, and thus unpredictable. The engineer psyche doesn't like that.
- oh_sigh 14y ago
  Human psychology is irrational and unpredictable only for very narrow definitions of rationality. Just because we don't understand the brains operation doesn't mean it doesn't behave rationally
  - edmccard 14y ago
    Those definitions of rationality are useful _because_ they are narrow. If you redefine "rational" to mean "how the brain operates", you might be able to stop using the word "irrational", but...all the phenomena that previously fell into the "irrational" category will still exist, and people will still want to discuss them, so you might as well just use the same word for them as everyone else does.
    - oh_sigh 14y ago
      The term "rational" is already well defined. I was claiming that the OPs understanding of the meaning of rationality was limited, not that the term rationality was narrow. There are many other words and phrases available for us to talk about this concept that are well understood and do not need to be redefined.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

paulhauggis 14y ago

I suppose it's the same mentality behind: "He's a manager..it doesn't seem like he's doing anything! His job is so easy!". You can replace "manager" with any management/leadership role.

zobzu 14y ago
Well, playing golf is hard!
- stickbranch 14y ago
  And attending meetings.

zobzu 14y ago

We implemented a similar thing a few years ago at a company I worked at. We designed a very fast system zero-knowledge matching over zillion entries. It was way faster than the "competition" (which arguably were slow because they just never cared). It took a few hours instead of a few days to run, basically. While the results were 99.99% the same as from the slower solution, customers would think "it can't be right" or other things like that, and wouldn't trust the product. We'd just give the result a day later. Fighting with customers expectations is sometimes very hard.

amalag 14y ago
Then sell them the more advanced faster one for more money.
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  "Use our advanced cloud infrastructure to generate reports in under 8 hours!"

jd007 14y ago

This reminds of airport nowadays. They were getting a lot of complaints about the slow speed that checked luggage comes out of after landing, so they simply moved all arriving flights' gates to the furthest away possible from the luggage claiming area. People had to literally walk across the airport after they get off, but complaints about luggage speed dropped significantly.

igrekel 14y ago
Actually, if I remember well (ut can<t remember where I get that from), another reason was so that people walk a little while to let their back recover from slouching all the flight before they pickup their heavy suitcase. Meaning in the end they had to bring less people out on a wheelchair.
- lizzard 14y ago
  Maybe you mean this as a joke, but I am a wheelchair user, and it is often really not fun to push myself through the airport. So.... your joke falls a bit flat.
  - gknoy 14y ago
    I don't think he was joking, but rather implying that people with stiff backs could be more likely to injure themselves.
  - igrekel 14y ago
    It wasn't a joke, I didn't explain myself properly. When some people pick up their heavy suitcase after slouching for a few hours, their back locks in and the airport has to put them in a wheelchair and take care of them and their luggage. Having people walk a few minutes more actually reduces the chances of that happening.

DanBC 14y ago

Now you've trained the users for the reduced app speed you can sell access to the advanced faster version.

nraynaud 14y ago

This is a serious marketing problem about perceived value in B2B entreprise stuff. We had the same kind of problem the product was really technological: 15 years of research, a prover, 6-7 PhD and stuff like that. But I decided to simplify the interface to a minimum, and every parameter tuning should be automatic. We ended up with just a few buttons in a toolbar and a few views embedded in an eclipse plugin. Then the customers where thinking that an "eclipse plugin is not worth 10k€", because the technology was hidden.

ZoFreX 14y ago

Can't find the article right now (help?) but Blogspot (now Blogger) can create blogs instantly - the loading spinner and wait are completely artificial, to assure users.

rachelbythebay 14y ago

This happens with old-fashioned customer support and technical troubleshooting, too. It seems to be the temporal equivalent of putting scrap metal in electronics to make them seem heavier and thus "more reliable". The more I hear about it, the more I believe it. I ran into this while doing phone and ticket support back in the day and tried to get my coworkers to join me in an experiment but they refused. We could have learned so much. I wrote about it: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/07/14/difficulty/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/07/14/difficulty/