Waiting…

As we continue to evolve as a civilization, individuals do as well. With that comes a decrease in attention spans for humans, which in 2013 was less than that of a goldfish.

At just eight seconds, that is the average attention span according to a study done by Microsoft in partnership with Jampp back in 2013. So what is the deal? And why do we hate waiting?

A podcast called Wait Wait… Tell Me! by the 99% Invisible discuss just that. The problem of waiting falls back on the age where computers were new to the era. In 1981, Xerox came out with its latest, quickest, top of the line machine — an office computer called the Xerox Star (99% Invisible).

“Overwhelmingly, people felt that it was a slow machine… overwhelmingly, the sentiment was that it took forever. It took forever to load. It took forever to exchange files (99% Invisible).”

So what was the solution to calm people’s frustration? Well, it was loading icons! On the Star, the mouse cursor would turn into a static hourglass icon, while Macintoshes from the same time had a wristwatch icon. The problem with the watch icon was it gave you no sense of how long you would be waiting for. It could be seconds, minutes, hours, or might not even finish at all (99% Invisible).

No matter, these still did not help you understand how long you had to wait. Which induced the feeling of powerlessness of waiting for something you have no control over (99% Invisible). This lead to the next improvement, the loading bar.

This formed expectations within the user and suggested an educated complete time. But, it lied until the early 2000s. Now it was a loading bar that had nothing to do with how much work the computer had done. Instead, it was designed just to make the wait feel better. It would always start off slow, to set your expectations for a fairly long wait, and then speed up at the end, so that you end up feeling pleasantly surprised (99% Invisible).

In the early 2000s, that idea of trying to manipulate the users’ experience of time really took off, especially with big online retail companies whose profits depended on keeping customers on their website (99% Invisible). And now you see this done in everything.

Now this is what advertisers need to be educated on, how to manipulate the users’ experience. We don’t like waiting and our attention spans are decreasing annually, so how do we keep consumers active and attentive?

Transparency. Transparency among you, your product, business and the consumers is a trend that is evolving the way humans think and interact in our busy world. And here’s how to give it to them:

• Create a culture of honesty
• Make information easily accessible
• Respond quickly
• Be active
• Admit to mistakes and rectify them

And on top of it all, show consumers what you do when you’re doing it. Whether that is a Facebook live video, a window in between workers and consumers or inviting them in for a field trip type event.

This reduces the anger we develop when we’re having to wait. When you see what is actually going on your anxiety reduces and you are able to truly understand what is going on and why the need to wait is necessary.

I thank computer scientist who shifted the way humans think and react. Because of their mere advancements with loading icons and bars, we are now spearheading ingenuity. Giving companies the power to adapt transparency, better equip and understand how humans react to waiting.