Cultural differences on how you perceive web page loading time

One of the things my new (well, I’ve been working for TUI for over four months now…) boss cautioned me was not to listen too much to a single opinion. And this is something he often returns to: not to take for granted that the person with the highest salary or voice knows best or should be the one making the decisions. Having discussed and have had opinions about working in a lean environment for four years, it’s challenging but more important so intellectual stimulating to at last work for a leader who asks the four why’s when you state something. It makes me really evolve and make so much better decisions.

Because we take for granted that our perception and ideas or general to everyone but I cannot cease to be amazed how untrue this is in the most unthinkable situations.

This weekend, I’ve read Global Information Systems: The Implications of Culture for IS Management, a book which include a number of research papers on culture in IS Management. (No, I did not read all papers and the ones I read, I read them as a normal reader and not a researcher.)

There where many interesting articles but the one that really got me thinking was a study about web page loading. I’ve never thought of this before but since the conception of time differs between people and cultures, the web page loading time is perceived differently in different cultures. It’s not like some cultures like slow pages but more that 1 second is perceived so differently. The cultural differences even amazed the scientists who never thought they would find such a strong statistical correlation. Probably because time is such a basic concept in our minds that we cannot for see that it can be different for someone else. So, which of your perceptions do you take for granted are shared by all your clients and users?

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