When Filling the Wait Makes it Feel Longer: A Paradigm Shift Perspective for Managing Online Delay
Authors: Hong, Weiyin; Hess, Traci J.; Hardin, and Andrew M.
Journal: MIS Quarterly (2013)
DOI: 10.25300/misq/2013/37.2.04
As one of the most commonly experienced problems on the Internet, download delay is a significant impediment to the success of e-commerce websites. While some research has examined how such delays can be reduced and how much delay online users will tolerate, little research has taken a theoretically grounded approach to managing perceptions of the wait. Based on time perception theories, we develop a research model of the effects of actual wait time, amount of information, and direction of attention on perceptions of the wait. Two empirical studies were conducted using an experimental travel website to test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that with shorter waits, providing additional visual content, such as a travel picture, may make the wait feel longer. However, with longer waits, additional visual content that distracts the user from the passage of time makes the wait feel shorter and reduces users’ negative affect toward the wait. Further, the benefits of providing visual content in longer waits are enhanced as more content is provided. Visual content should also be chosen to distract the user from time and temporal processing, as reminding users of the passage of ti…