1. As I'm typing text into a search input, the interface wants to instantaneously pattern match my search and offer the best results. Sometimes this is helpful. In other situations, this can take my attention away by opening extraneous menus or interactive elements. To be honest, I just want to finish typing my search. Stop asking me for more input as I'm typing my input.
2. Certain websites are designed to open menus/interactive elements as the cursor hovers over particular web elements. For me, this is sometimes another distraction. Just because I moved my mouse, that doesn't mean I want to see yet another menu. The instant responsiveness can lead me to click in the wrong places due to unexpected interface components showing up. I can't tell you how many times I've chained several misclicks due to unexpected links/buttons (or lack thereof as described in 3 below).
3. Responsiveness creates expectations for feedback. Then, if some part of your application starts to lag (maybe it's the internet, maybe it's my computer), you lose the responsiveness and I get annoyed.
Am I just becoming a grumpy old guy?
I've recently been polishing up [1] for commercial release. It's a product that serves a real need for a niche community, and it's one that I built and use every day based on my own experiences for what I need as a member of that community, so I have even more reason than usual up get it right.
Truly instant responsiveness means putting the data as close and as hot to the end user as physically possible, to the point I wrote and tweaked my own trie implementation to get it just right. And even there with some of the new commercial features I'm starting to run up against ever so slightly noticeable input lag, and it really makes the whole experience feel clunkier than it should. Considering adding a 50ms denounce just to hide my shame...
[1]: https://github.com/hiandrewquinn/tsk
Generally speaking I want instant response especially on native apps, but I agree with all the examples you gave especially when it has something to do with Internet. I actually want consistent rendering time across the site rather than fastest possible page view every time.
It’s good for a UI to be immediately responsive to user actions, as long as the response matches the user’s intent. So it’s not the responsiveness that is the problem, but the response not matching the user’s expectations.
#2 can be an issue the opposite way as well, such as manufactured delays. Think of a modal window that pops-up after you've been on a site for 5 seconds and are just about to click a link, but instead click the modal. Or you begin reading, are 2 sentences in, and the modal pops up. When this happens, I close the page. It's so frustrating.
They consider app functionality and features, or look-and-feel and design, but they ignore UI (or don’t know what good UI is).
Like you described, even a simple search bar requires careful thought and experimentation to get right.
Another issue is UI libraries. People plug these in thinking they solve everything but in reality they only get you so far.
Otherwise, snappy interfaces are kinda nice.
At its core, the idea is the same - some folks can produce exceptional products with same tools, but it is now packaged for the LLM era.
The first thing a novice struggles with and reads 30 Medium articles from 2014 about is their taste exceeding their skill, and how to close that gap.