Queues & Waiting
Why an unexplained wait feels twice as long as an explained one
Waiting is experienced rather than measured, and a handful of design decisions change the experience…
· 4 min read
Queues & Waiting
How waiting is designed, measured and occasionally manipulated.
20 articles · page 1 of 2
Queues & Waiting
Why one line feeding many counters beats a line at each counter
The single queue is not merely fairer; it is measurably steadier, and the reason is variance rather than courtesy.
By Amrita Kohli · · 4 min read
Queues & Waiting
Why “your call is important to us” is played at all
The most mocked sentence in customer service is doing four separate jobs, none of which is persuading you…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
Why the ticket number skips yours and then comes back
A numbered ticket display usually shows several queues at once, which is why the order looks broken when it…
· 4 min read
Queues & Waiting
Why the clock measuring your wait starts later than you think
Published waiting times are measured against a defined start point, and the gap between that point and your…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
How a waiting list is ordered, and what marking something urgent does
A waiting list is several lists sorted by category before date, which is why the person who joined after…
· 4 min read
Queues & Waiting
Why appointments run late in a pattern you can predict
Delay accumulates through a session rather than occurring at random, which is why the first appointment of…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
What the rope maze is for, and what a virtual queue changes
The physical shape of a line and the decision to let you wait somewhere else are two separate design…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
Why Monday morning and the last day of the month are the same problem
Demand at a counter is not random; it is shaped by deadlines and by the days people are free, and the peaks…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
The person at the door is doing triage, not greeting
A greeter in a service hall exists to sort arrivals into the right channel before anybody joins the wrong…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
What a queue does when the system it depends on fails
An outage does not stop a queue; it converts it into a different kind of queue with different rules, and…
· 3 min read
Queues & Waiting
Why a service running at full capacity always has a queue
Waiting time does not rise smoothly as a service gets busier; it rises gently for a long while and then…
· 3 min read