Comments on: The 90 Second Rule

By: Allen

Allen — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:19:52 +0000

@Dan: Not all quest mobs in WoW are in instanced dungeons. It’s those that aren’t that you have to wait for if someone else kills it. You don’t have to worry about all 40 million people cramming into the same space because there are multiple servers and each server has plenty of space for people to adventure in. I have a tool that periodically performs a census of everyone logged onto the server and have never seen much more than 1500 players on at the same time.

By: BigBadJohn

BigBadJohn — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:48:46 +0000

If you are sitting in traffic at a red light, after a period of time you’ll notice the drivers around you start to edge forward, anticipating the green light - i’ve never timed it, I will next time, but I suspect it’s around 90 seconds

By: Jerome

Jerome — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:15:17 +0000

Providing feedback about the wait time helps. I hypothesise that predicting the wait duration isn’t always helpful, though, because — based on my anecdotal evidence — it’s annoying because it’s often wrong.

A few decades ago, when phoning directory assistance, the phone company in Holland used a recording to announce the number of people in the queue. “There are 12 people waiting ahead of you.” ["Er zijn nog 12 wachtenden voor U."] And it would count down: 11, 8, 2, 2 (again), my turn!

In my experience, this was better than trying to predict the time to completion. We all know from experience that “serving people” in a queue takes a variable and unpredictable amount of time, whereas “about 2 minutes” is a much more specific commitment.

[On a different note: does it bug you, in the movies, that during the last 30 seconds before a time bomb blows up, the timer practically stops dead when the camera looks away at the sweaty face of the hero trying to cut the blue NO THE RED wire? Every ten seconds of action fits in a mere 3 seconds on the bomb's timer.]

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:01:49 +0000

I’m not sure you’re correct about WoW. As I understand it, the dungeons are stateful - that is, each separate party that enters a dungeon explores their own instance of the entire dungeon, including monsters. After all, there are 40 million players and nowhere near 40 million different dungeons - you’d have dozens of hundreds of parties all trying to cram in to kill one single quest-related monster.

By: Aaron

Aaron — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:59:18 +0000

Another example is with $$$. I’ve had many an argument with coworkers about the taxes we pay when we work overtime. Many, if not the the majority, of my coworkers believe that if we earn more than one day of overtime pay in a given week, the pay bumps us into the next tax bracket and thus, the government takes a higher percentage out of that particular paycheck. It’s complete fiction; I’ve done the math. I can pull out a calculator and show them and they refuse to believe me. I’ve said to one coworker, “I’ve done the math, the numbers don’t lie.” And his response was, no joke, “But I’ve been doing this for 20 years!”

If they take $250 out of $850, which is roughly 30%, the paycheck ends up $600. Without a calculator or a decent sense of proportion, when they take 30% out of 2000, and the paycheck ends up $1400, they might think, “I got raped; they took out almost half!”

I think this boils down not merely to people being unable to gauge time or percentages, but being conditioned to look for things to complain about.

I used to work in a restaurant and if a table had to wait 15 minutes, they would complain that they were waiting over 30.

By: The 20-minute rule maker

The 20-minute rule maker — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:29:52 +0000

I think there’s also a 20-minute rule for something like this… I’d like to make one up. For example, it states that any big event that lasts longer than 20 minutes will seem shorter than it actually is if you participate in it, and much longer if you’re waiting for them.

I’m thinking of the possibilities for these rules; for example, a 2-hour rule for movies; if a movie lasts for less than 2 hours, then it will seem to last only 30 minutes.

By: mehere

mehere — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 13:27:23 +0000

Note that in Ireland and Britain, pedestrian crossings at junctions also “really work”, but in a way that sometimes confuses tourists: The lights have a preset cycle, but skip the break for pedestrian crossing if the button is not active. The occurence of the pedestrian crossing break deactivates the button after one run. Thus, if you don’t press the button and it isn’t lit up (active already), the break doesn’t happen, and the lights just cycle through traffic control again. But if you do press the button, the break always occurs at the same point in the traffic light cycle, and thus takes a variable time to happen from button press time. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen american tourists waiting aimlessly at traffic lights, not realising they have to press the button, because the first few crossings, some local has pressed it and the americans have noticed the sequence seems to be preset like the “fake” buttons in the USA…

By: In 90 Seconds on iface thoughts

In 90 Seconds on iface thoughts — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 15:22:31 +0000

[...] Elliotte Rusty Harold muses whether the 90 second rule applies to cases beyond shopping. Taking care of a customer in two minutes is a success; doing it in three minutes is a failure. [...]

By: Labnotes » Rounded Corners - 74

Labnotes » Rounded Corners - 74 — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 04:15:05 +0000

[...] Start your timer. Elliotte Rusty Harold about the 90 second rule: “I suspect the ninety second rule has been undernoticed and undervalued in the world of computer human interfaces because we mostly focus on the half-second rule instead.” [...]

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 09:32:16 +0000

Looks like a fine article, but I didn’t finish it, I stopped after 90 seconds or so