Dovresti leggere i pensieri di Jakob Nielsen su questo argomento.
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0.1 second is about the limit for having the user feel that the system is reacting instantaneously, meaning that no special feedback is
necessary except to display the result.
1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted, even though the user will notice the delay. Normally,
no special feedback is necessary during delays of more than 0.1 but
less than 1.0 second, but the user does lose the feeling of operating
directly on the data.
10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the
user's attention focused on the dialogue. For longer delays, users
will want to perform other tasks while waiting for the computer to
finish, so they should be given feedback indicating when the computer
expects to be done. Feedback during the delay is especially important
if the response time is likely to be highly variable, since users will
then not know what to expect.