This is what I and many other programmers have done (not the removal, but fake delays), because it improves user experience, actually:
1.When the user clicks a button that should take long in their mind (like uncompressing a zip file etc) but is actually fast, it might seem like something is wrong and it didn't work
2.When the user transitions between layouts of the application, if it loads everything too fast it will look too abrupt, a fake delay will be made here if a transition animation is not possible/doesn't fit
I was working on an enterprise web application, there was a legacy system that everyone hated and we replaced it with a more modern one.
We got a ticket from our PO to introduce a 30 sec delay to one of our buttons. It sounded insane, but he explained that L1 support got too many calls and emails where users thought said button was broken.
It wasn't, they were just used to having to wait up to 5 minutes for it to finish doing its thing, so they didn't notice when it did it instantly.
We gradually removed that delay, 10 seconds each month, and our users were very happy.
next, you'll tell people the door close button in elevators doesn't actually work.
I'm pretty sure it's either a myth (that it doesn't work) or some US-centric thing, because when I worked as a delivery guy, I used to go through probably hundreds of different elevators in high-density residential buildings, and most of them have doors that stay open very long to allow baby strollers and heavy appliances to be placed inside, and on pretty much all of these the door closing button works, immediately closing the door
They work in Canada but not America
Is there a secret flag to disable the delays? Would be kinda awesome to have for "thosa in the know"
Most probably not, at least in my programs I've never made a flag, because my delays are usually no more than 3 seconds anyway
There was a financial calculator from HP that they made for decades. The newer ones were so fast doing large mortgage calculations that the users didn't trust it, so they intentionally slowed down the results.
My kid got a job at some place and was browsing through an update script for a customer. There were a bunch of random-seeming
sleepandprintfstatements. He couldn't make sense of it, so asked one of the more senior techs what was the deal. It was as you said. They had updated software/hardware at a customer's site and the backups were going so quick that the customer was getting pissed because "There is NO way this is doing in 10 seconds what should take several minutes." OK, the customer gets what they want. A judicious sprinkling of delays and meaningless messages. The 10 second update now takes a little over 4 minutes and the customer was happy again.First reason is just poor UI design. I'm sure there are billion ways to indicate a successful action even if it was immediate.
Imagine asking a person a math question like what 2 times 3 times 7 is (without you knowing the answer). If that person immediately goes like „42“ you‘ll most likely think that it’s a joke response and the person doesn’t take your question seriously. If however that person takes a few seconds to think you are much more likely to believe the answer.
As CS major, 1 bothers me so much.
I see it all the time especially on calculator sites.
Used to work with a guy who would put 3 second sleeps after every line in our Jenkins file. He would then say how he's so busy because he has no time when he's always waiting for builds to run.
Chris, everyone knows what you were doing.
This is an old strategy described in this article from 2008: The Speedup Loop
I was just about to share that article. Definitely worth the read for anyone wondering!
"That is genius" - Elon Musk
You have to create your database without any indexes, then you can add them later for a speed boost
uh oh you need to buy the new iphone because the current update makes your old iphone too slow to use.😉
Users hate this one weird trick.
The trick is to have users in the first place if your new tool sucks due to slowness.
yeah, oldest trick in the book
For even better payoff reduce the sleep by 100-500 per major update
Who needs to add Sleep calls when you can just do your shitty every day naive implementation and let your future colleagues fix your mess.
