Waiting in Line….

Have you ever found yourself getting all agitated while waiting in a queue for tickets? Bouncing from one foot to the other while you’re waiting for the shop assistant to finish helping the people in front? Ever stood in a passport line at the airport? You’ll know how frustrating it can be sometimes. We have some tips and clues for people designing for “queues” that will help your customers, users and visitors have a better experience. Researchers have learned a lot about how to design a standing-in-line experience so you’ll probably feel less stressed when you finally reach the front of the line and your objective, whatever it is:

• We wait better when something engages our attention, such as a video or a game.
• When we’re in a good mood, we are better waiters. This article talks about how design can boost our mood.
• In-line experiences are better when we’re comfortable, so it’s great if areas, where people will stand in line, are air-conditioned and have benches where people can sit, even briefly. Older, younger, taller, shorter, etc., people can be comfortable in different conditions, and amenities such as benches provided during the wait need to support these differences.
• If there are two sets of lines, one for “preferred” customers and one for just regular folks, it is likely the line for mere mortals will move slower. In that eventuality, it is better that those in the slower line can’t see the people zipping along in the other line.
• Time seems to pass more slowly in warmer coloured spaces than it does in cooler coloured ones.
• Music makes waits seem shorter.
• People often wait with others, and when they do the place where they’re in line should allow them to stand with those other people, allowing four people at least to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. When people can talk to those they’re waiting in line with, they think they’ve spent less time waiting.
• We’re better behavers when waiting in line if, when we join the line, we have some idea how long it will likely take us to get to the front of our line. After we get into the line, it’s best to tell us halfway to the front if anything is going on that is delaying the line, but that’s it, moment by moment updates on wait times aren’t a good idea.  Updates about how much of the wait we’ve “done” can improve mood though (e.g., Yippee! Now we’re half done with this wait NOT Looks like we’ll be waiting in this line for another 20 minutes).  It is good if we can see the end of the line as we approach its finish.
• We should feel like we’re making constant, consistent progress toward our goal, not lurching along forward every so often.
• We focus more on length of the line we’re in than how fast that line is moving so a firm may be able to improve perceptions of a waiting experience by creating more lines that move more slowly than a single longer line that moves more briskly.
• We tend to pay a lot of attention to the distance from the start of a line to its finish, so a snaking line, that results in the end of a line being relatively close to its beginning, can work out well, waiter frustration-wise.
• People who finally get to the front of a line can be stressed by the presence of the people in line behind them (this can be very important if once people get to the front of the line they have to do something that requires focus, such as punching in an ATM code), so it’s best if people waiting are not in the line of sight of the person at the front of a line.