The Effect of Progress Indicator Speeds on Users' Time Perceptions and Experience of a Smartphone User Interface

The primary goal of this study focused on manipulating the speed of the progress indicator to decrease users’ time perception and improve satisfaction with and personal preference for a smartphone user interface. The experiment of this study adopted a 3 × 2 mixed factorial design using ANOVA to examine the three progress indicator speeds, i.e., normal, slow to fast and fast to slow, and two wait durations, 5 s and 15 s, using different progress indicators. The results show that speed has no significant effect on time perception. However, a more complex feedback type may increase participants’ time perception, especially for a long wait duration (i.e., 15 s). The speed of “fast to slow” can make participants more satisfied than the speed “slow to fast,” just in the case of the bar indicator. Participants were more satisfied with 5 s than 15 s. Finally, there was a positive impact on the participants’ preferences when they perceived a shorter wait duration.

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