Labor Perception Bias

Duration: 2 min

…why faster isn't always better.

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🧠 User Psychology

Imagine going to a
fancy 5-star restaurant.

You order a rare and complex dish…

—comes back with the meal you ordered just 15 seconds later…

…that'd feel suspicious, right?

The waiter leaves, and then—

Well, it's the same thing with digital products…

Imagine signing up for Hubspot's CRM app and…

…towards the end of the onboarding, you import
your 287,539 contacts.

Oof… that's a lot of contacts,
I hope everything goes well… {tap}

—and BAM! Hubspot imports all those contacts in just 0.01 seconds.

…uh… that was it?

Did it work?

Just like in the restaurant example, faster isn't always better.

You could improve the experience by—

—slowing things down to reassure the user.

Labor Perception Bias

People trust and value things more when they see the underlying work.¹

People dislike waiting in general, but if your users have high expectations (e.g., money transaction, migration, analysis, reporting), they become skeptical if the waiting time is too short. That's why displaying a labor screen right after a key action can improve your UX.²

For "benevolent deceptions"³ (fake waiting times), there are important ethical rules. We cover them step-by-step in the bonus at the end of this story.

¹Labor Illusion Effect, Psychology of Design (2021)
²Visibility of System Status, NN/g (2022)
³Fake progress bars, The Atlantic (2017)

When you understand the Labor Perception bias, you see its applications everywhere.

For example…

…when you transfer money on Wise.com, you're not just—

—dumped into an activity log.

uh, ok…? Hopefully my money will get there…

Instead of this
abrupt transition…

Wise.com shows you—

—a reassuring animation of your money being processed and transferred.

Now, these transition screens may seem like simple interface decorations, but…

…the psychology behind the Labor Perception bias can have a serious business impact.

Be careful though…

The Labor Perception bias can be damaging if you apply it incorrectly (e.g., unethically).

For example—

The ROI of Labor Perception

A well-designed effect can increase your app's perceived value by up to 15%.¹

Perceived Value vs Perceived Labor

The net lift on activation, retention & revenues obviously depends a lot on your context (waiting duration, audience, product, etc), but it's worth testing.

¹Transparency vs Perceived Value, Harvard (2011)

Plus, you can apply this concept to almost every product, so give it a try.