Everybody knows that the more you are waiting the less productive you are, but of course if goes further than that.

0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is necessary except to display the result.

1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally, no special feedback is necessary during delays of more than 0.1 but less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating directly on the data.

10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialogue. For longer delays, users will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer expects to be done. Feedback during the delay is especially important if the response time is likely to be highly variable, since users will then not know what to expect.

According to Nielsen http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html 1993.

A tale of two machines

My problem is almost one of good vs much better. I have 2hrs+ every day working on my own hardware. Its not that quick, only 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo, but I have no network, all my files are local. Compiles are up to five seconds for 40 projects rebuilds, a normal build is completed instantaneously.

My works machine is a 3GHz Hyper Threaded something. There's a custom build of XP with some great enhancements. Our favourite is the up to five minutes wait if you select Programs from the Start Menu and you haven't done it for about half an hour. However I can get around that. What is a problem is the use of Clearcase with views on the network. Checkouts take one to two minutes. Compiles are about five minutes for 30 project solutions. Even worse step through debugging can have a one-two second delay between steps.

At work, I get through a lot of cups of tea. In fact I can easily get there and back before my build completes. Never can remember what I was doing though.