{"id":4707,"date":"2016-12-05T17:45:42","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T17:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=4707"},"modified":"2020-11-05T11:14:34","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T11:14:34","slug":"the-illusion-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/the-illusion-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The Illusion of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

My grandfather was a watchmaker. When I was a child, I used to sit next to his huge wooden desk, watching him design and assemble clockworks made of dozens finicky pieces. The amount of patience, determination and precision he put into every facet of his designs was something I have always admired.<\/p>\n

Watching a running clockwork for the first time felt like magic. While a computer\u2019s insides\u2019 looks rather cold and dull, a watch immediately captivates us with its beauty, craftsmanship and human touch.<\/p>\n

\"clockwork-architecture-drawing\"

Clockwork architecture drawing<\/p><\/div>\n

It wasn\u2019t until I was twelve when my grandfather finally offered me one. As he put it on my wrist, he said something I\u2019ll never forget:<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/svg><\/div>

\u201cRemember, time is the most precious gift of all.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe not as dramatic as uncle Ben\u2019s last words in Spider-Man but it made an impact in the way I think about design ever since. Time is the most valuable and limited resource we have. That\u2019s why good design is about saving time.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/svg><\/div>

\"Time is the most valuable and limited resource we have. That\u2019s why good design is about saving time.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

Time in the digital age<\/h2>\n

Designing digital experiences comes with an ingrained obsession. The obsession of speed and performance. Amazon calculated that an increased loading time of just one second<\/em> could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year. Google loses about 8 million searches (and ad displays) when page speed decreases by just four tenths of a second<\/a><\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200ascary shit!<\/p>\n

So what do we do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We create performance budgets, cut the mustard, run image optimizations, minify our JavaScript and CSS and cache our assets on servers located in the most exotic places around the globe.<\/p>\n

There is a caveat though. First of all, faster doesn\u2019t necessarily equate to better experience<\/a>. Secondly, perception of time is highly subjective<\/em>, or as Einstein aptly put:<\/p>\n

\u201cAn hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember the last time you were on a bad date? Time suddenly runs painfully slow and the only thing you can think of is why you\u2019re not sitting on your comfy couch back home, watching the latest episode of Game Of Thrones. There are many other, less hormone involved examples that come to mind.<\/p>\n

When you stare at a watch, you can literally feel how time slows down. Sometimes it even feels like the watch is stopping for a second.<\/p>\n

During holidays, time perception changes dramatically. The disproportionate amount of new impressions changes the way we feel about time<\/em>. It\u2019s why the first few days usually seem \u201cslower\u201d while days in a later stage fly by.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/svg><\/div>

\"Perception of time is highly subjective.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

Time <> Interaction Design<\/h3>\n

Time is a crucial part of interaction design. At the end of the day, the absolute minutes and seconds users have to wait won\u2019t really matter though. It\u2019s about how people experience and remember them.<\/em><\/p>\n

The case of Amazon sheds some light into it.<\/p>\n

A study<\/a> by UIE compared the perceived speed of web pages. They found that Amazon was rated faster with an average download time of 36 seconds than About.com with an average download time of 8 seconds. This is huge! They found more along the way\u2026<\/p>\n

When users accomplish what they set out to do on a site, they perceive that site to be fast.<\/p>\n

How is this possible?<\/p>\n

We do not encode time in absolute terms<\/em>. It highly depends on an individual\u2019s emotional state and context. When we feel pleasure and progress as a result of an activity, we barely notice time. The same applies to user interfaces. Well designed interfaces feel faster even though they might actually be slower.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/svg><\/div>

\"When we feel pleasure and progress as a result of an activity, we barely notice time.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

Let\u2019s see what kind of design strategies<\/a> we can use to alter time perception and potentially create more fluid experiences.<\/p>\n