by julia🐨razumovskaia -

Designing for Speed: How Fast Interfaces Shape Our Digital Behavior 3/10

#slowness #slowliving #slowinteraction #digitalcalm #calmtechnology

Modern interfaces seem fast not only because they are optimized, but also because they were designed that way from the outset — visually, cognitively, and, most importantly, emotionally.

“Did you ever notice that some apps seemed faster even though your internet connection remains the same?” — Ayman Abdallah, 2025 [1]

The author explains that the perception of speed depends not only on metrics but also on design decisions such as smooth animations, instant feedback, and placeholders during loading—all of which create that “feeling of speed” regardless of the actual loading time.

Today, fast interfaces have long become the norm. In this article, I want to examine and discuss the key patterns of “fast UX” that define our digital experience.

1️⃣ Instant Feedback — instant reaction as an illusion of control

Instant Feedback is a so-called seamless reaction: you like something, and the heart immediately turns red; you swipe right, and the screen changes instantly without any smooth animation. This pattern reinforces the feeling that the app is always “ready” and sometimes even faster than you are.

Examples:

⭐Instagram: likes, saves, animations — instant, even if the request has not yet reached the server. “Visual simulation of action.”
⭐TikTok: swipe to the next video with zero delay, even if the video is loading in the background.
⭐YouTube Shorts: reactions and swipes are also instantaneous. The feeling of an endless stream.

❔ How does this speed things up? Instant Feedback suppresses the moment of pause, thought, and reflection. Even the slightest delay could allow you to realize what is happening.

2️⃣ Endless scroll — no beginning and no end

One of the most fashionable inventions of digital content consumption culture.

Examples:

⭐TikTok: swipe to the next video with zero delay — even if it is loading in the background. The platform has also recently introduced the ability to automatically scroll through the feed.

«Are we truly ready for it to be the white noise in the background of our daily lives?» — Jordan Hart [2]

This is a great example of how one seemingly insignificant feature can fundamentally change the core concept of the TikTok platform.

“Autoscroll makes TikTok — an app that people use to dissociate, and which already has to remind its users to take a break because they’ve been scrolling for hours  — into an even more passive experience. And I’d argue you get the most out of TikTok when you engage with it, going down that rabbit hole on a new topic that caught your interest or reading the back-and-forth in the comments section about a hot-button issue.” [3]

Endless scroll provides an infinite amount of content without a stop signal, without a bottom line, and even without a pause. The only pause is when you go to the comments and try to socialize a little. This is a difficult task with an unknown outcome, which, from a psychological point of view, forces the user to continue in an attempt to find the end, which does not exist.

⭐We are also all familiar with Instagram Reels, Threads, Pinterest, and X feeds.

“As a result, the feed is a ubiquitous interface — an infinite stream of content, a list that goes on forever.” — Alexis Lloyd [4]

3️⃣ Notification Loops — as a trigger for acceleration

Notifications are a kind of rhythm in which we live. They form an accelerated cycle of checking:

Notification —> Waiting —> Reaction —> Click —> Attention

Examples:

⭐Instagram: notifications that “someone has started a live stream,” “you’ve been tagged,” “new post”
⭐Facebook: notifications for every random action
⭐TikTok: push notifications about “trending videos you might like”
⭐Snapchat: the same streaks

❔ Why does this speed things up? Notifications create a certain time frame that dictates when we need to act, without giving us a chance to think. We don’t choose the moment — it chooses for us.

4️⃣ Micro-Acceleration Patterns

Modern applications use micro-movements that create the illusion of speed, even if the actual work of the system takes longer. This is one of the key mechanisms of “fast UX.”

Examples:

⭐LinkedIn, Airbnb, Uber, Notion: use of Skeleton Leaders — so-called low-fidelity gray blocks that mimic the structure of future content. This way, the brain is already loaded and sees movement, it seems that everything is about to happen, but the loading is still in progress. This keeps the user engaged.
⭐Spotify, Google, Gmail: use the technique of movement towards the result. Interfaces use animation before the data is ready. Animation of the transition to the player, a pop-up map, opening a letter.
⭐Instagram, YouTube, Duolingo: auto-advance behavior. Content plays and switches automatically — without the user’s decision. The video switches to the next one based on a recommendation, the same endless feed, or a transition to the next task without indicating it.

🔚 Conclusion

Finally, I would like to mention that all these patterns are effective, but not from the point of view of human experience.

For humans, this creates:

📌a feeling of rush;
📌an inability to stop;
📌short, superficial attention;
📌an accumulation of cognitive noise;
📌digital fatigue;
📌destroy the sense of time by accelerating the internal rhythm.

Fast UX is more than just speed.
It is the aesthetics of acceleration built into every movement: swipe, like, notification, update.
These patterns shape the pace of our lives.

I can also recommend a relevant video on this topic by a blogger who highlights the problems of digital noise and, based on her own experience, talks about how to clear it up and turn it to your advantage:

“Our brain processes approximately 10 billion bits per second through our senses—sight, hearing, and touch. At the same time, our prefrontal cortex, which is our attention, can only process 10 bits per second of what it allows into our consciousness.

This ratio is not really new. Even in the days of the telegraph, people complained of being overwhelmed. I love reading historical commentary on new technologies because what we now consider unique to our time has actually been described in the same words by people in the past.” [5]

Sources 🛈

[1] Ayman Abdallah. Why some apps feel faster than others. Medium, 2025. Available at: https://medium.com/@aymanabdallah/why-some-apps-feel-faster-than-others-926a30839fab

[2],[3] Jordan Hart. TikTok’s new auto-scroll feature sparks debate. Business Insider, 2024. Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-autoscroll-feature-comments-section-2024-1

[4] Alexis Lloyd. Future #62: Invention & Reinvention. Ethical Futures Lab / Medium, 2023. Available at:
https://medium.com/ethical-futures-lab/future-62-invention-reinvention-4c657950f89d

[5] Anastacia Kay. Как выйти из цифрового тумана (How to Get Out of Digital Fog). YouTube, 2024. Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_vi1-y-bbQ

by meric.oeztuerk -

Crossing the Bridges

“Crossing the bridges” can refer to a specific film, a musical album, a metaphor for spiritual or professional journeys, or a proverb about not worrying about future problems. The meaning depends entirely on the context, such as a 1992 drama film, a 2013 film about returning to a village, a 2005 documentary about Istanbul, a musical album, or the idiom “don’t cross that bridge until you come to it”

 My name is Meriç, and I’m a sound designer, music producer, and electronic dance music performer  known as numeric.

 I started making electronic music about eight-ten years ago, and over time it turned into something much deeper a lifelong search for sound, emotion, and space.  

Music and sound have always been central to my life. This passion led me to explore questions like how to create sound and arrange electronic music compositions. This curiosity drove me to research more, investigate deeply, and develop a passion for music and sound. I started my journey as a DJ in 2014, performing at various venues. Through this experience, I realized the need to create compositions that could convey my stories through sound. Over the years, I have immersed myself in music composition and production, constantly striving to enhance my sound and musical quality. I have learned sound design, production, effect techniques, mixing techniques, arranging, and experimented with various hardware/software synths.

My passion for music, especially electronic music composition, led me to pursue a Master’s degree in Music at Istanbul Technical University . During my studies, I honed my skills in sound design, mixing, and mastering techniques, solidifying my desire to build a career in the sound design area. My time at ITU provided a rich exploration of the audio realm. I deepened my understanding of musical structure and harmony through music theory courses and explored sound manipulation through audio programming . I gained insights into contemporary music trends and techniques through my coursework. I also had to meet with great professors, artists and well minded fellow students.And I think most important I discovered how interesting and at the same time beautiful to research what you are passionate about .

 Sound design, for me, is both a craft and an inquiry. I spend countless hours refining my techniques, creating unique pieces and constructing custom systems for performance and media art. This personal research runs parallel to my artistic output, which lies at the intersection of electronic music, experimental audio, and immersive experience.I’m fascinated by how sound behaves in space, how it moves around the listener, and how technology can make those experiences more alive.Studying sound design gives me the tools to connect artistic ideas with technical reality.It helps me understand how sound works, but also how to use it to create emotion, meaning, and atmosphere.In my creative work, sound design is not separate from music Its the biggest part of the music.It’s the texture, the emotion, a tool which shapes a raw material.I see it as a way to build worlds, whether in a live performance, movie, theatre  installation, or interactive setting or advertisement. In the future, I want to continue my journey in sound design on both an academic and an artistic level, developing my practice professionally through research, creative projects, and collaborations.In the next two semesters, I would like to focus on the intersection of creative sound design, spatial audio, and intelligent systems .During my previous master’s studies, I worked on projects related to immersive and 3D sound, and that’s where my real passion for this field began to grow.

That experience deeply shaped my artistic direction and was one of the main reasons I decided to join the Sound Design program at IEM, a place that, in my opinion, holds a tremendous position in the field of immersive sound.

Now, I want to take this interest to a much higher level, both creatively and conceptually.

 In the coming semesters, I plan to explore how immersive sound can be used to create emotionally powerful and spatially engaging experiences, bridging artistic expression and technological research.

by philipp.fasching -

Motion/Gesture tool for virtual foley and sound design

– First ideas and concepts

The research of project ideas for my personal project took a little longer than expected. For this project I was planning to learn new skills, as well as create something valuable to present and use for my career aspirations after the masters course. As one of my main interests lies within sound design and foley for linear and interactive media, the project should be within that area.

When thinking about foley work, it seems to me that the actual foley recordings have not really changed a lot since its invention in the 1920s. Of course equipment and technology shaped its development, but in essence the performance and recording of probs is still the same. This sparked an idea of bringing the foley performance into the digital realm, while still keeping the haptic feeling and body performance in the real world.

I came across an interesting project, an application to trigger sounds with a leap motion controller, which seems to have died off at some point and is not supported anymore. I was not really aware of the concept of leap motion to trigger sounds, but I already stumbled upon some gesture control via gloves controllers. A well known example would be the MiMU Gloves demonstrated by Imogen Heap in her NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert from 2019. In that performance she controls parameters of a sampler and multi effect application with hand gestures live while singing on top of it. The main function of the gloves in this performance is to create sound scapes, pads and rhythm. It seems to be used more like a backing instrument in combination with the artist’s voice.

As there are already applications to control foley and sound effects playback via audio input, for example human voice, I had an idea to use some kind of sensors to trigger and control foley sounds via motions and gestures. This could happen through some kind of gloves or motion capture via a camera, but is not only bound to that. Bringing this idea into my project, there could be an option to control the amplitude, pitch and playback speed of multiple samples simultaneously, as well as seamlessly blend between them. That would be one way to get different textures from multiple recordings and create something new out of it. As an option there could also be a granular synthesis option to get different sounds, depending on the situation and sonic vision. With the motion and gesture control this seems like an interesting and interactive way to play a sampler like a physical instrument.

For my project, the main goal would be to develop a software which could take gesture or motion control inputs and control certain playback parameters and effects to have a virtual foley stage controlled via physical movement. For the controller input I will research available controllers at FH Joanneum or IEM, as developing and building such a unit would go beyond the scope of this project. I still need to figure out many key factors involved in this project, but this seems like the direction I want to head towards.

The next steps would involve research on the development platform to allow this as well as how to incorporate the data output of the motion tool to realise the controls in the application. It would be also necessary to determine the scope of the application and what the prototype should be able to perform. As foley and sound effects cover a broad sonic landscape, concentrating on one specific type would make the definition of goals more approachable and lead to a quicker implementation of specific targets.

by philipp.fasching -

Sound is both my language and tool

– A sound design journey

My musical education started with my drum practice lessons when I was eight years old. Prior to that I had a little obsession with the handheld tape recorder, where I remember running through the house and recording everything I came across. At some point during my teens I swapped out my drumsticks with two record players and I started to mix vinyl records. This newfound artform of combining and merging tracks together to create a sonic experience and adventure has completely taken over most of my attention for years to come. During that time I also had my first ventures into producing music digitally via Ableton Live. This experience was at some point a little dampened by my then lack of technical abilities and expertise in the mixing and mastering field. This led to a newborn curiosity in the more technical areas of music production, especially in the art of disc mastering and lacquer cutting. It all started with the question ‘Why does this record sound so different compared to xyz’. To deepen my knowledge and expertise I invested in a desktop cutting lathe system for one-off and small run vinyl record production. This was followed by years of learning all the ins and outs of this cutting system, groove geometry and disc mastering in general. And finally ended up taking over the cutting room in a vinyl record pressing plant just outside of London, UK for the last 3 years.

Music and sound, to me, induces the strongest feelings and excitement out of any sensoric system in the body. There is nothing as beautiful as the sensation that can be experienced in music and sound from my perspective. As a drummer from heart, rhythm and groove is something that needs to be felt and experienced, rather than explained and understood. Nothing can connect and unite people across the planet and various backgrounds like music does. It is such a vital tool to society and has fuelled various movements and revolutions alike. The inspiration one can get through music is to me personally unique compared to other art forms. I also appreciate the story aspect behind a full album much more than just listening to single tracks and songs. The same is going for DJ sets and the intentional compilation of songs to create experiences, which was the reason I was so captivated when starting out playing vinyl records. 

My prior interest in sound design has always been more from a sole music perspective. It was only about a couple years ago when I discovered some field recordings and the artist speaking about their craft. The way this topic was presented was so captivating, I immediately knew that I wanted to get involved as well. Since then I have experimented with different types of field recorders and microphones, from shotgun, ultrasonics and contact microphones. The idea of capturing natural sounds and mangling them to create fascinating soundscapes was always appealing to me. I always experimented with sounds and sketched ideas, more than actually arranging these into more finalized works. Therefore I am really interested in collaborating with people from different disciplines and creating interesting projects throughout my studies. When making the decision to further deepen my knowledge in the sound design field, but moreover get a better understanding of all the opportunities and challenges, it was soon clear to me that the course at FH & KUG would be a great fit.

For my creative work I would envision sound design to be the main anchor, as a supporting creative outlet for multi disciplinary media or in a standalone position. The main role should always be to contribute to a joint, well balanced experience. Without sound design I feel things lack emotion and a certain connection to the media. This is why it should always encourage a bigger goal and support the cause. Sound design should therefore be a well planned and calculated stage at the project, with input and feedback from most stakeholders. It will probably not be the easiest task to convince people about the importance of a well structured approach, but in my work and work environment I want to enforce this as best as possible. 

Within the next two years I want to try out everything I can and see what kind of area is the most interesting to specialize and focus on in my future. I am very open to dive into the fields of interactive and linear media, but also have a hunger to learn more about the actual sound design process of a physical product and some material science behind it. In the craft itself I am trying to learn and soak up all the skills that would need to be necessary to achieve my goals. I am looking forward to learning more about storytelling and dramaturgy in general, which will strengthen my understanding of the topic, as well as the ability to work alongside a team and the internal communication that comes with that. My mission is to fully commit to every project with my passion for sound design by creating meaningful experiences. I want to find my niche, where I can then develop my personal style and skills to be sought after.

Specifically interesting would be to work in audio post production for a short movie or animation film. I want to learn the basics of mixing sound for media in dolby atmos or other surround formats. Within these projects I also want to focus on my foley skills and work. This would be both a creative and technical thrilling experience. Besides that I am also looking forward to designing audio assets for interactive media, like a video game. I do like the approach and process to this, especially with all the variations one might do on similar sounds. Another fascinating skill to learn would be the implementation of these sounds to create a realistic sonic environment in an animated world. The last major topic I want to engage in would be product sound design. I am inspired by how one can shape materials and form an audibly pleasing experience that creates a stronger emotional connection to an object.

Ultimately I am super excited to have taken this path and direction, within a field where my creative needs and my technical interests are both met complementary. I cannot wait to create holistic and immersive experiences to enrich and inspire people around the world. Sound is both my language and tool.