Cross-Over Study of Time Perception and Interface Design

Abstract

Pace of life is getting faster today, and it even affects the quality of people’s life. Time is so important to human while it also troubles us a lot. Sometimes time seems so valuable that we take everything to earn more seconds. However, during a vacation, we ignore the passing of time. We are willing to consider what kind of pace of life can bring us more happiness. Time sense becomes an important experience in our daily life. This research is trying to improve our time experiences of interaction with interface design. As we know, people without specialized training cannot count time precisely without a clock, while they surely have an individual habit of perceiving time. Psychology of time is a psychology about human’s time perception. Therefore, the research is a cross-over study of interaction and time psychology in terms of knowing how design can improve people’s time experiences.

This study takes some time psychology theories as a foundation to know about the principles of human’s perception of time. With the purpose of elevating the time experiences of people, three aspects are considered having effects on it: signal stimulus, time information processing and personal psychological condition.

Signal stimulus—human’s perception of time always depends on some time signals, which are necessary materials of the brain processing. They could be numbers, visual dimensions, colors, temperatures, sound volumes, frequency of motion and so on.

Time information processing: several time processing models and calculative strategies of the time duration explain basic rules of processing time information in a human brain.

Personal psychological conditions: different time perceptions can trigger different emotions. And people in different moods can have different feelings about the same time interval.

In the study, the author summarized four possibilities to bring people better time experiences.

Following that, some assumptions in accordance with the research were made. Based on these assumptions, several experimental products, which are calendar design and traffic lights design, are designed. Finally, some experiments were conducted to test if the new designs can indeed create better time experiences. And one of the experiments would be reported in this article.

1 Program Illustration

1.1 Study Context

People have their own feelings about time. Philosopher Guyan (1980) said time was just a systematic disposition, a mental representation organization of the description on the variation in universe [1]. People can feel the temporal moments and the duration of time. Beyond doubt, those estimations are usually not accurate, and they deviate from the clock time more or less. Moreover, those illusions also cause emotional reactions to the duration of an event. For example, a person, who is blow-drying hair in 1 min, usually has a better mood than the one who is waiting at a red traffic light in 1 min. The former person is relaxed and the 1 min goes without an attention. By contrast, the other one is eager to cross a street so that the 1 min is suffering. Seizing seconds and killing time are very contradictory while common in our daily lives as well. We can be affected by the positive and the negative aspects of time. In brief, time perception has significant influences on our experiences in life.

1.2 Research Objectives

Emotions make our experiences colorful. Products with both functions and emotions complete our lives better [2]. With the pace of life is speeding up, people have a more critical requirement of life quality. Time experiences become an important part of our happiness. As Steve Taylor said in Making Time, human’s perception of time was variable and he proposed an idea of controlling the time perception. Thereby, according to the study and references, there are four possibilities for designers to improve the interaction of time experiences:

• To release the anxiety of waiting.

Anxiety of waiting is the most common human feeling of time. During a waiting process we cannot decide the end time and we hope time passes faster, especially when we are in a bad mood, time seems pass slower. This research needs to find several ways to release the anxiety.

• To improve people’s efficiency of reaction.

Time has several subjective attributes. Because of the attributes, people particularly for those who have procrastination, usually cannot notice the time fleeing and have a low utilization of time. Nevertheless, they could use time better if they are reminded.

• To help people to recreate.

In the world, especially in China, a job occupies most of a person’s life and many people are in sub-health status. Timekeeping devices can help people to catch every second while also make them forget to have a necessary rest. Helping people to recreate and release pressure is an important responsibility of this research.

• To eliminate or correct people’s time cognition bias in order to avoid misoperation.

Some timekeeping devices deliver unreasonable time information leading to a wrong action by users. To find those mistakes and correct them will eliminate people’s misoperations.

Time perception has already been found having effects on interaction experience. Some designs, such as the countdown of advertisement during shows, the appealing loading bars and so on, have already involved people’s time experiences. These ideas improved the time experiences by reducing the anxiety of waiting. But we do not know if there will be better ideas and if the time perception be controlled as required. The research objective is to improve the time perception in a product-human interaction with the cross-over study of time psychology and design. Interaction design is a new field of design, and it changes the relationship of human and products from “use” to “interact”. It starts to focus on the interaction of both sides (human and products). Inevitably, human-centered and user-friendly criterions become significant to product design. In order to understand the deeper and more complex human behaviors, designers have to find helps form other subjects. This research is based on the interactive design and the time psychology. Using design methodologies to apply the time psychology theories in cases, designers can understand the users’ specific time sense and design products well, so that to create better time experiences in interaction. On the other hand, as a big branch of psychology, the time psychology has lots of achievements while many of them still stay in theory. Blending with design, the time psychology theories can be transferred into products and it can improve the interaction experience.

2 Psychological Mechanism of Time Experience

2.1 Generation and Operation of Time Perception

Time psychology is a science studying of the reaction of an individual brain to the duration and the succession of time [3]. In terms of the time psychology, it has three attributes: succession, duration and focus of events. Temporal duration means the length of time between two successive events. Human can estimate the temporal duration. Temporal duration is more comprehensive than the succession and the focus of event. Duration estimation is a very common behavior in time perception study [4]. The perception of time succession is very important to interaction experience.

Tools for Measuring Time: Physical Time and Human Internal Clock. The reason of human even animals can have the time perception and estimation is the inter-reaction between the physical time and the human internal clock.

• Physical time covers artificial timekeeping devices: clock, calendar, as well as inartificial ones: sun rise and down, lunar cycle, day-night cycle, season changing etc.

• Inner clock: the biological model of time perception explains human body has an internal clock, which is consist of rhythmic physiological activities and mental activities inside of the body, like hart beating, breath, digestion and memory representation lapse. Even certain status of nervous system can be temporal signals. All of these are the premise of organism and the basic time perception [5].

Processing of Temporal Duration Information. Several mental models have been developed to explain how human process temporal stimulation and they mainly reveal the types of the temporal duration estimations. The most famous ones are storage size model (SS model), processing-time model (PT model), change/segmentation model (CS model) and range-synthetic model [6]. Each of them is trying to explain time perception behaviors. In PT model, there is a cognitive timer in human brain being responsible for processing the non-time information. And there is also a stimulation processor for the stimulation of the event. As human’s attention resource in brain is limited, putting more attention resources on the cognitive timer inevitably will lead to less resources put on the stimulation processor, and a longer temporal duration will be perceived vice versa.(vroon,1970; hicks 1977, burnsides, 1971, zakay 1983 macar). This model explains that when we are doing nothing but waiting, time passes very slowly to us. But when we are playing cell phones or reading a funny book, the temporal duration can be shortened obviously. The range-synthetic model advocates different duration length, days-weeks-months-years, involves the particular cognitive strategies and different representations (Huang Xi ting, Xu Guang guo 1999).

Estimation Strategy of Temporal Duration. Temporal duration estimation strategy means people can infer the duration of an event according to the processing speed and content of it. And even if the processing speed is changed, people still can speculate the rest progresses and judge the ending time based on the present speed [7].

Hecht said people could estimate the rest of time with arithmetic and operational perception. This strategy explains the principles of people inferring the future temporal duration. Stephken K. Reed and Bob Hoffman proposed 4 advanced strategies for the temporal estimation [8].

Influential Variables in the Estimation Strategy of Temporal Duration. If the environmental variables and the individual variables are changed in an event, people’s estimation strategy will be changed accordingly as well as the estimation. Usually, the individual variables are difficult to control. But we can put more concentrations on the environmental variables which can be easily perceived and designed. The environmental variables can be into many forms: numbers, shapes [9], frequencies of act, colors, and so on. E.g., the size of digits is in the direct proportion to the length of the estimation of temporal duration.

Comparing to the values of number, people all tend to compare the temporal durations by the scales of number. As the Fig. 1 shows, although the value of 3 in left is equal to the right one, the right one is considered having a longer duration [10].

Fig. 1.

Two ‘3’ with different scales

Summary. In this research, the time psychology theories mainly are estimation models and strategies of temporal duration. According to the PT model, designers can simply set some attractions for users in waiting process to reduce their anxiety. It is a very simple and effective method. The estimation strategy is the main method for an event temporal prediction. By controlling the environmental variables, it can impact people’s estimation strategy and then change the time perception.

2.2 The Interacting of Time Perception and Emotion

Time experience is complicated. It is not only depends on time perception, but also the users’ psychological conditions. Comparing to the time perception, people’s initial psychological conditions are fickle factors, which can affect people’s time perception while also be affected by time perception [11]. Thereby, the time experience improvements in interaction can be achieved with the user’s time perception and the psychological condition.

• 1. Impacts of psychological conditions on the temporal perceptions

• Anticipation [12]

Generally, people’s anticipate is opposite to the temporal actual changes. In other words, when you are wishing the events to go faster, time seems to get slower. What is more; the harder your wish is, the slower time is.

• Psychological conditions

Generally, the positive emotions will make time pass faster while the negative emotions make it slower.

• Attentions

Highly concentrated attentions can shorten and lengthen the estimated durations.

2.3 Impacts of Time Perception on Emotions

Emotions can affect people’s time perception. Moreover, the time perception can affect the emotions vice versa. And that is the key of this research. The emotions are a big part of the interaction experience. The time perception can have effects on emotions because time has several subjective attributes in human brain [4].

• Time has variations—time senses of human are different in one day. Time could be flash or very slow.

• Irreversible and loose—time can be irreversible and free that is very appreciable to people having different careers.

• Fragility of time—helps people to be punctual.

• Invariability—time stays in one pace to people leading to inefficiency.

These subjective attributes are the connections between the emotions and the time perception, as well as the premise of the time experiences. They can affect people’s emotions and cause the experiences changed during an interaction procedure. The time sense and the user’s emotional status are the evaluation criteria for the time experiences.

3 Product Carriers

Not all human-product interactions need the time experience design. Products directly correlating to time sense decides this interaction to have a requirement of a time experience design. Basically, they contain two types as below.

3.1 Timekeeping Devices

As the timekeeping devices, clocks and timers are directly associated with time experiences, e.g., watches, clocks, timers, calendars, sundials, sand timers as Fig. 2 indicates. This category shows the objective time is trusted by people. When people’s time estimations have bias with the indication of a timekeeping device, they adjust their inner clock. The objectivity of time information is essential to those kinds of devices so that they are avoided delivering the false time information.

Fig. 2.

Timekeeping devices

3.2 Indirectly Time Indicators

Loading bars, traffic lights, display panels of elevators are the devices delivering the developing progresses which are the indirect time information. These kinds of products as Fig. 3 presents, cannot offer the accurate time information even their designs are more flexible comparing to the clocks. There are more capacities and potentials provided to the designers.

Fig. 3.

Indirectly time indicators

4 Experimental Research

The experiments were based on two product designs and they will be described in this paper. The experimentations of traffic lights will be demonstrated as well. It is helpful in understanding how to explore more opportunities and methodologies for the designs of the time experience improvements.

4.1 Red Traffic Light Experiments

Research Context. There are many people running red traffic lights because of the loss of patience. Actually, the duration of a red traffic light is two minutes maximum. The two minutes procedure is very short comparing to other activities. But people run the red light for skipping over the short waiting. This behavior is not only because of the anxiety of the pedestrians, but also the red light form which is not good enough for people with a good patience. So this experiment focus on the red light designs to improve the interaction experiences.

There is one thing need to be noticed, the red light interaction is very complex. As well the light forms, the pedestrians’ individual variables are also varying a lot. The research and experiments cannot cover all variables as only the ones very closed to the time perception will be studied. In saying so, the general practicability of traffic lights cannot be the test criteria of the experiments.

The constrained temporal duration of the red lights cannot be shortened. So the only way to improve experiences is to decrease the anxiety and enhance the degree of pleasure. There are three methods to enhance the pleasure degree. The first one is to shorten the temporal duration of pedestrians. The second method is to distract attentions from the time signals. The last one is to lower their expectations. The distraction is the easiest and most common method. For example, enjoying with a cell phone when people are waiting is a very useful way of distracting them. It takes up lots of attention resources and the pedestrians can feel little of temporal duration. But as this method is not a design of traffic lights, there will be no further discussion in this article. Lowering the expectations is also hardly achieved by the traffic light designs. To shorten the temporal duration estimations is a method to be pleased to use the interaction between time signals and pedestrians.

Objectives. According to the reaction of the participants to different temporal signals, the experiments can find how and why the samples affect the time perception.

Research Methods.

• Participants: 10 males and 10 females with ages between 23 and 28 from Tsinghua University. All of them are Chinese and have no experience with a similar experiment before.

• Materials: A laptop with flash animations. The flash content 6 red light designs which are illustrated in Fig. 4. The interfaces of the samples are designed as fading lattices and each sample’s combinations of shape and speed appear once in one time. All durations of the samples are 30 s.

  Fig. 4.

  

  Red traffic light samples

• Experiment design: the experiment is a 2*3 within-subjects design. The independent variables are presenting as the A-shapes and the B-fading speeds. The dependent variables are the temporal estimation durations and the pleasure degrees of users. The shapes have 2 conditions: The A1-rectangle and the A2-reverse trapezium. The speeds have 3 conditions: the B1-constant speed, the B2-acceleration and the B3- deceleration.

Procedures.

• Experiments take oral reports and comparative methods. Each of 20 participants randomly accepts 6 sample tests for 10 times.

• Without the use of any timekeeping devices, participants need to watch the animations and they are required to estimate the temporal duration of each sample. Then they write down an estimated number of different durations and give a score (the maximum number is 10) of the pleasure degrees about each sample. The participants must mentally simulate they are waiting at the red lights.

• Conducting the experiment when the participants are free and calm. During the tests, the participants cannot talk, move, count in their head, while have to focus on the animations. That is to unify the psychological contexts or control manipulated variables.

Hypotheses.

• Different combinations of various shapes and speeds cause people’s different time perceptions and interactive experiences.

• Affecting temporal duration estimation strategy can influence the temporal estimations.

• The lengths of the temporal estimation durations and the experience qualities are in positive correlation. It means the shorter estimation durations cause better emotions than the longer estimated durations.

Result. All data were submitted to SPSS 15.0 for analysis.

• Estimated durations.

The means of the estimated duration in different conditions are shown in Fig. 5. The results of the two-way repeated measure analysis of variance show there are no significant shapes & speeds interaction, F (2, 38) = 1.117, p > .05. However, it reveals the significant main effects of shapes, F (1, 19) = 7.214, p < .05, and the speeds, F (2, 38) = 2.978, p < .05, indicates that the estimated durations are indeed influenced by the shapes and the speeds. Post hoc analysis demonstrates that the participants in the A2 condition presenting a significantly longer duration as compared to A1 condition (23.2 vs 22.4, p < .05), and it has a similar situation in B1 condition as compared to the B2 condition (23.3 vs 22.2, p < .05).

Fig. 5.

The means of estimated duration in different conditions

• Degrees of pleasure

Degrees of pleasure in different conditions are shown in Fig. 6, and the same process of the two-way repeated measures analysis of variance is performed. In the same way, the results demonstrate there are no significant shapes & speeds interactions, p > .05 and both the main effects of the shapes and the speeds are significant. Post hoc analysis shows that the participants in A2 condition has a significantly positive experience compared to the A1 condition (7.21 vs 6.78, p < .05), and significantly, more positive experiences are presented in B2 condition compared to the B3 condition (7.32 vs 6.31, p < .05).

Fig. 6.

The means of pleasure degrees in different conditions

Discussion.

• Different shapes can affect the estimated durations and the pleasure degrees during the interactions. In details, the duration of shape A1 (rectangle) is longer than shape A2 (Inverted trapezoidal); while the pleasure degree is lower than shape A2.

• Different speeds also cause distinct changes of the durations and the pleasure. The speed B2 (acceleration) catches a longer estimated duration a higher degree than the speed B3 (deceleration).

• The effects of Variable A on the duration and the pleasure degree cannot be influenced by variable B.

Conclusion. Synthesizing the experiment data and the interviews, we found the sample A2B2 brought the shortest estimated duration and the highest pleasure degree. A2B2 was so popular because its tapering shape and accelerated diminishing catered to most of the participants’ expectation—crossing the road as soon as possible. The rectangle, the constant speeds and the deceleration did not meet the expectation. Both visual dimensions of time signals showed in a diminishing change and an accelerated development would reduce the estimating temporal durations and delight the moods. We also found that the participants had different reactions to one sample in different sections. It is because they have both prospective and retrospective estimations in one sample. But this experiment did not make a further study about that.

4.2 Brief Instruction of Calendar Experiment

This experiment is based on a calendar design. According to the research and the range-synthetic model, dividing years into weeks is more acceptable than into months to people having a job. Because one week is a work cycle while one month is only a regular calendar unit. As we know, many people enjoy the relaxation in weekend and hate the tension in workdays. And their expectations and moods are changing during one week. This experiment has 16 samples of a calendar showed in Fig. 7. The experiment is a 4*4 within-subjects design. The independent variables are font sizes and paper areas of per day. The dependent variables are participants’ pleasure degrees of different sections in per week. Each of samples has different combinations of the font sizes and areas. This experiment assumes different combinations have different effects to the users’ time perception. The experiment report will not be displayed here.

Fig. 7.

Calendar sample

5 Conclusion

This research used psychological theories and design methods. It is a new angle for time psychology study and design study. In one product, to improve the time experiences is very complicated and difficult. A psychological theory is only a basic premise and there is a long way of context study, sample design and experiment to go. This research’s intention is not to forward the psychology theories but to test the theories in the practical cases and find practicable solutions. The four main steps of the time experiences design are problem finding, psychological defining, samples design and experiments. Besides, being different to the psychological research, the qualitative data collection takes a great part in this research. At last, this cross-over study of time psychology and design is far from the end, and it has a great potential.