Many of today's interactive software products and services are not responsive enough. Responsiveness is one of the most important factors in determining customer satisfaction with software and online services, but it is continually slighted by developers. This talk distinguishes responsiveness from performance and points out that performance need not limit responsiveness. It explains that the user-computer interface is a real-time interface, with time-constraints that software must satisfy in order to be perceived as responsive. The talk also presents techniques for improving responsiveness despite limited or fluctuating processing resources. Many examples are provided of responsive and unresponsive systems.

Talk Summary and References available.