The Effect of User Interface Delay in Thin Client Mobile Games

Thin-client computing may be a solution to such problems as providing sophisticated applications on devices with low computational power, or providing reasonable access to digital artifacts whose distribution the copyright owner still wishes to protect. However, certain application domains have tight constraints around user interface response times, and the network aspect of thin-client computing may cause issues in this regard. We have conducted an experiment to identify how various delays added to mobile games affect players' performance and perceptions of the gameplay. By studying the effects of these delays, we aim to identify time-based performance parameters within which our future thin-client computing systems should work if they are to support all application domains.