More Factors That Affect Performance
The following sections discuss some aspects of the application that may not immediately strike you as part of the performance of the application. But they do affect the user’s perception of the application performance, and so are relevant.
User Interface Usability
The application’s user interface has a significant effect on the user’s perception of performance. The time required to navigate through the user interface to execute some functionality is seen by the user as part of the application’s response time. If window and menu navigation is difficult, performance is seen to be bad (and actually, it is bad).
The user interface should support the natural flow of the user’s activity; otherwise, you are forcing the user to perform less efficiently. Improving only the navigability of the user interface, even with no other changes to the application, improves the perceived performance of an application.
Training
Training users to use the application is also a performance issue. Without proper training, users may not use the application efficiently, and will then compare the application unfavorably with another application they are comfortable with. Since they are comparing similar functionality, the user immediately focuses on the differences. The main difference, of course, is the perceived performance.
The user never thinks he is untrained. He simply feels that executing some function in your application takes forever, as he stumbles through menu ...
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