User perception of animation fluency: The effect of time duration in different phases of animated transitions during application usage

Abstract

Animation fluency is an important factor of user experience in smartphone applications. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of time duration in different sections of application usage on users’ perceived fluency. We manipulated the duration of different phases, including the click-response delay (CD), duration of animation (DA), and duration of loading completion (DL), in an open app task and an in-app page switching task. The participants evaluated the perceived fluency during their smartphone use. The results showed that the CD and DL had a significant effect on perceived fluency and that the CD, DA and DL showed significant interactions in some situations. These results could supply detailed parameters for smartphone design and could be used to build a model to guide manufacturers to provide a better user experience.