As I just learned at an AWS conference: people will tolerate waits, they just won’t tolerate unpredictable waits.
so, make the service slow all the time so it doesn't come as a surprise when there is a reason for it?
Kinda, yeah.
That's literally the idea of traffic calming.
On a wild tangent, I've tried to tell people this about the League of Legends queue system for the highest tiers.
Instead of having random queue times, set the games to launch at predictable times (such as every 15 or 20 minutes). The matchmaking gets much easier, and everyone knows how long they have to wait. Hold some people on the cusp for the high tier queue, and after it goes you can release anyone who doesn't make it back into the general pool.
But it's the same concept. Don't make people wait for a random time between 2 minutes and 45 minutes, where they have to be attentive the whole duration. Just tell them when to show up.
There also has to be the illusion that something is happening. Take websites for example. After about 3 seconds on a blank screen, the length of time starts to be noticeable. If you throw a loading screen up, then 30 seconds becomes much more reasonable.
In the late 2000s this advice would have been divided by 10.
After about 300ms the time starts to be noticeable. If you throw a loading screen up then 3 seconds becomes much more reasonable.
People will only tolerate waiting if it’s for something that will personally benefit them.
Likewise, people hate waiting if it exclusively benefits someone else
when i worked at starbucks drive thru i had people tell me they drove past like 4 other inside-only starbucks to get here because we had a drive thru
the same people who bitched about having to wait 30 seconds longer than they thought they should have to wait
Starbucks drive throughs are hell - one I used to drive by would have a line that backed out into the street every morning. Like probably 20 cars long, every day. I just don't get it.
Why even enforce these businesses to have parking minimums when this happens anyway. That said i do think it should be illegal to have a drive thru overflow into the street. If you set up a private drive thru lemonade stand in your driveway and caused traffic jams in your neighborhood the city would defintely get involved even on a low traffic street, why is it acceptable for a fast food joint to do it on major roads? They could block emergncy vehicles, restrict visibility and in some cases I've seen them gridlock intersctions (which is already illegal in many places).
Why skip drive thru when mobile pickup exists?
I live in a city and get very fucking aggressive with car drivers who don’t wait for bikers.
The other day a lady just drove right through the bike lane, almost running me over, just so she could wait a half a block down the street at a traffic light.
Of course she only rolled her eyes when i called her out on it “oh i didn’t see you there”. You didn’t even look you stupid idiot. She just went back to petting her dog like she didn’t almost just hurt someone.
There was someone trying to cross the crosswalk the other day, so I stopped (as the law dictates). 30 seconds of every other motorist in the other lane not yielding later I eventually just gave up and drove away. Legend says that they're still trying to cross the road to this day.
I love when this happens while I'm driving bus because I will happily just put my nose over and block both lanes. Drives the dumb ass drivers insane and puts a smile on my face for a while
City buses should be like school buses, they should have a stop sign and lights to allow passengers to cross. They should also have a fold out yield sign since no one seems to respect the turn signals.
I stopped at a crosswalk once and the pedestrian waved me on lol. Like c'mon... you can cross, I have all day.
This mostly doesn't happen in Australia. Zebra crossing means stop. A lot of pedestrians won't even check, they just walk onto the road on a crossing.
When I'm late or in a hurry, sometimes that's my response to crosswalks. I get honked at and yelled at a lot, but almost everyone stops because no one wants the liability of running over a pedestrian.
I aspire to one day be as useful as a big mac.
No way in hell am I waiting 20 minutes for a shitty Big Mac
19 minutes?
For McDonald's? 3 at most
