Fake loading skeletons beat a spinner, +11% search use

Fake loading skeletons beat a spinner, +11% search use

Weird one. Perceived speed, not real speed.

Setup. Search results that take ~900ms to load. Control = centered spinner. Variant = skeleton placeholders, the grey shimmer blocks. Same actual load time. 4,000 search sessions.

Result. Searches per session +11%, bounce on results down. Nothing got faster. The skeleton just FELT faster because the layout was already there, brain reads it as 'almost done' vs the spinner's 'who knows.'

Day 2 surprised me, I expected zero. Perception is a real lever.

Go swap your spinners for skeleton loaders. Same speed, feels quicker. Report back.