Tools: Your App Isn’t Slow. Your UX Just Feels Slow.

⚡ Perceived Performance > Actual Performance ## 🧠 The UX Latency Trifecta ## 1. No Immediate Feedback ## 2. Blocking Transitions ## 3. Unpredictable Waiting ## 🦴 Skeleton Screens Beat Spinners Performance complaints rarely start in your profiler. “Your main thread is blocked for 300ms.” “This app feels slow.” And most of the time? They’re reacting to UX latency, not actual performance. Let’s break down why — and how to fix it. Humans don’t experience time objectively. We experience feedback. A 500ms delay with feedback feels faster than a 100ms delay with silence. Your app may be technically fast — but emotionally unresponsive. User taps a button. Nothing happens. Even if your API responds in 200ms, the brain already decided: Hard cuts feel slow. Abrupt layout shifts feel broken. Smooth transitions buy you time. “I don’t know how long this will take.” Spinners without context increase anxiety. Users perceive skeletons as **faste Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Are you sure you want to hide this comment? It will become hidden in your post, but will still be visible via the comment's permalink. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse COMMAND_BLOCK: button.addEventListener("click", () => { button.classList.add("loading") }) Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode COMMAND_BLOCK: button.addEventListener("click", () => { button.classList.add("loading") }) COMMAND_BLOCK: button.addEventListener("click", () => { button.classList.add("loading") }) CODE_BLOCK: .card { transition: opacity 150ms ease, transform 150ms ease; } Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode CODE_BLOCK: .card { transition: opacity 150ms ease, transform 150ms ease; } CODE_BLOCK: .card { transition: opacity 150ms ease, transform 150ms ease; } CODE_BLOCK: <p>Uploading image (2 of 5)…</p> Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode CODE_BLOCK: <p>Uploading image (2 of 5)…</p> CODE_BLOCK: <p>Uploading image (2 of 5)…</p> - A loading spinner can feel fast - A frozen screen feels broken - Button press states - Instant visual changes - Optimistic UI - Skeleton screens - Progress indicators - Step-based loaders - Honest microcopy