I think that notion of "experience design" is very important, and that people's perception might differ from reality. Like I think I have heard that Menus are actually faster on Linux than on Windows, but on Windows it feels faster because they are animated immediately.
I also read somewhere of a case where designers solved the waiting problem by putting up mirrors next to the elevators. That way, people were busy looking at themselves and didn't notice the wait time as much.
>but on Windows it feels faster because they are animated immediately.
Context menus take between 3 and 6 seconds on my Windows XPSP2 machine to load the desktop context menu as it thrashes the hard drive. That's after a memory upgrade where it took half a minute to load the desktop context menu. My slower KDE machine loads context menus instantly.
Where are these Windows machines with instant animating menus?
I also read somewhere of a case where designers solved the waiting problem by putting up mirrors next to the elevators. That way, people were busy looking at themselves and didn't notice the wait time as much.