The effects of mobile applications’ passive and interactive loading screen types on waiting experience

The loading screen is unavoidable to smartphone users, and the waiting experience influences the success of a mobile application. Providing visual feedback during waiting time is an effective way to increase the waiting experience. This study is the first to examine the effects of interactive loading screens on the waiting experience compared to a passive loading screen on mobile phones across varying waiting times. The rotating ring, which has been used in loading screens widely, was chosen in our experiments. Participants compared a passive animation with grey-scale and colour-changed interactive animations. The results indicated that the duration of waiting time has a significant impact on the selection of the loading screen type. The studies also demonstrate that colour can act as an essential design factor to improve the waiting experience when designing the interactive loading screen. Furthermore, it was found that perceived time was shorter when an interactive loading screen was used, leading to higher user satisfaction compared to a passive loading screen, especially for the long waiting time. The findings obtained in the experiments provide a reference and guidelines for loading screen design to improve users` waiting experience.