Enhancing User eXperience during waiting time in HCI: Contributions of cognitive psychology

Abstract

Despite technological progress, daily Human-Computer Interactions (HCI) are still encompassing moments where the interaction between the user and the system is temporarily interrupted (file download, setup of a program, etc.). These waiting times are often sources of anxiety and irritation. In order to enhance the User eXperience (UX) during waiting time in HCI, this research based on cognitive models of time perception focuses on the impact of several variables on the satisfaction and waiting time perceived by a user. Variations in waiting time duration, cognitive workload and informational level of a feedback screen are therefore experimentally created to study their impact on satisfaction and waiting time perception. The results confirm the existence of a link between cognitive workload and waiting time perception and may provide valuable information for User Interface design. © 2012 ACM.