What is the shortest perceivable application response delay?

user-interface response-time perception
Jon Cram picture Jon Cram · Feb 11, 2009 · Viewed 26.2k times · Source

A delay will always occur between a user action and an application response.

It is well known that the lower the response delay, the greater the feeling of the application responding instantaneously. It is also commonly known that a delay of up to 100ms is generally not perceivable. But what about a delay of 110ms?

What is the shortest application response delay that can be perceived?

I'm interested in any solid evidence, general thoughts and opinions.

Answer

Matt Jacobsen picture Matt Jacobsen · Mar 30, 2010

The 100 ms threshold was established over 30 yrs ago. See:

Card, S. K., Robertson, G. G., and Mackinlay, J. D. (1991). The information visualizer: An information workspace. Proc. ACM CHI'91 Conf. (New Orleans, LA, 28 April-2 May), 181-188.

Miller, R. B. (1968). Response time in man-computer conversational transactions. Proc. AFIPS Fall Joint Computer Conference Vol. 33, 267-277.

Myers, B. A. (1985). The importance of percent-done progress indicators for computer-human interfaces. Proc. ACM CHI'85 Conf. (San Francisco, CA, 14-18 April), 11-17.

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