People are good at waiting for what they want, but only as long as they know how long they are going to have to wait.

This situation happens all the time. Think about the last time you were frustrated or had a bad experience at a restaurant. Was it the food? Probably not. It was probably the fact that you had to wait longer than anticipated for a table, or that you could not find your waiter to place your order or get the check. Think about other regularly frustrating events in your life, the DMV, the post office, Christmas shopping, or visiting your in-laws. It is not that these situations are terrible; it is just that they take longer than you initially thought they should.

So how does this relate to usability on the Internet or software?

As you design a product you need to manage the user’s expectations about:

1. What is possible
2. What is currently happening
3. How long it is going to take.

This can take the form of a progress indicator:

an accurate loading timer:

or simple information about where a link takes you.

We have all been exposed to poor implementations of this type of information. As we wait for a progress bar to fill in something happens…Is the bar still moving?? Did my computer freeze? How do I stop this thing? If the user has a question mark after their thought, you are losing them.
As technology users become more savvy, they are less patient and more apt to move to another technology.

As designers of technology, we need to understand how to avoid this type of frustration by identifying potential issues early in the design process and come up with creative ways to solve them.

Also, we can utilize user testing to find possible frustration points within a product, and test ways of solving these issues by providing the user with information - information to know where they are, know where they can go, and tell them how long it is going to take to get there.

Until next time, keep it usable Internets.