What is the Labor Illusion Effect ?

The Labor Illusion Effect says that users trust and value results more when the results are shown to them after a delay as the website loaded results (even if the delay is fake). Scientists also call this artificial waiting.

Users find waiting more tolerable when they can see work being done on their behalf. Examples of this include:

• The Spanish BBA bank showing bills being counted through animations as the customers wait for the machine to spit out the cash.

• The travel website Kayak showing customers each website it searches.

• Apple’s prerecorded typing sound giving the impression as if each typed word is being keyed physically by the digital operator, etc.

Several experiments have been carried out to test the Labor Illusion effect. On a trip booking website, one group of participants were shown the result immediately without seeing the process. The other group was made to wait 30 to 60 seconds, but they were then shown the work being done by the website via animations on the screen of the website fetching information for the user. Even though both revealed the same search results, users preferred the second site in the end because of the perceived transparency of being able to see the work being done.

When people make an effort to enter information, they like to see an effort being performed on the other side as well. An overly quick result shows that not enough effort has been performed.

Examples

• Tinder shows an intermediate screen that says “finding potential matches.” This makes the user think that the app put in an effort to find the actual match.

• Grammarly says that “we are checking your work against billions of webpages. It may take a while.” This gives the impression that every word is very carefully being checked. After this, the customer tends to trust the results more.

A small delay and a representation of effort can significantly impact user trust and the usage of interfaces. However, care should be taken not to make the user wait until it gets tiresome for them.