7 - Responsiveness Bloopers

Abstract

Responsiveness is very important in determining the usability of software. This chapter explains the difference and how to achieve responsiveness when performance is limited. Responsiveness differs from performance. Performance is how quickly the software computes and displays results. High-performance software gives the results quickly; low-performance software is slow to produce results. Software can be responsive even when its performance is slow. However, much of the software in today's market has both slow performance and low responsiveness, a bad combination. Most responsiveness bloopers cannot be illustrated with software screen images because they concern what happens over time. This chapter illustrates them mainly with scenarios depicting dysfunctional human–human communication, along with a few visual examples and case studies. It also provides reasons for poor responsiveness such as the facts about responsiveness are not widely known, UI designers rarely consider responsiveness during design, and programmers equate responsiveness with performance. Seven responsiveness design principles, which define what it means to be responsive and suggest how to achieve it, are also discussed. Finally, this chapter describes several implementation techniques and methods to produce responsive software.