SLOP4787: The Science of Waiting

A twelve-week investigation into why waiting feels different from the time that passes, and how people, systems and designers shape the difference.

Waiting is an experience, not merely a duration.

1. MeasureWeek 1
2. ExplainWeeks 2–4
3. AnalyseWeeks 5–9
4. ExperimentWeek 10
5. AuditWeeks 11–12

Course at a glance

Course code

SLOP4787

Course level

4000-level

Academic career

Undergraduate

Unit value

6 units — SlopU's standard single-semester load

Teaching mode

In person — one weekly lecture and one weekly session

Semester

Semester 1, 2027

Duration

12 teaching weeks (22 Feb 2027 – 28 May 2027)

Weekly class time

1-hour lecture, 2-hour session

Workload

About 8–10 hours a week, including the wait-observation log

Prerequisites

None

Assumed knowledge

None beyond an ordinary experience of waiting for things

Incompatibilities

None

How this course works

Every week pairs one lecture with one session, tagged with a single mechanism from the ten below, and every week feeds the same instrument: a wait-observation log each student starts in Week 1 and keeps adding to all semester. Weeks 2–4 reread that log through a new explanatory mechanism rather than introducing an unrelated topic each time; weeks 5–9 do the same with matched pairs of designed and social waits. Nothing here is meant to be read on its own.

The four assessments follow that same shape instead of sitting outside it: Waiting Field Notes hands in the log itself with an interpretation; Queue Case Study reads one real system through the weeks that led up to it; Waiting Experiment changes one mechanism and measures the result with Week 1's method; Waiting Audit uses everything built across the semester on one real system. Each is only gradable because of the weeks before it.

The ten mechanisms

The course studies ten mechanisms that shape a wait — time, attention, expectation, information, interfaces, environment, queue rules, priority, value, control— one per week. That list is a teaching structure this course has chosen, not a settled or exhaustive scientific classification of why waiting feels different; treat it as ten angles worth checking, not ten laws.

The 12-week timeline

The whole semester, week by week, in the order it's taught — open any week directly from here rather than waiting for it to come up.

1. Week 1Five MinutesMeasure
2. Week 2Watching the ClockExplain
3. Week 3How Long Did You Expect?Explain
4. Week 4Tell Me Where I StandExplainWaiting Field Notes due
5. Week 5The Progress BarAnalyse
6. Week 6The RoomAnalyse
7. Week 7Who Goes Next?Analyse
8. Week 8Who Doesn't Have to Wait?Analyse
9. Week 9What's It Worth?AnalyseQueue Case Study due
10. Week 10What You Can Do About ItExperimentWaiting Experiment due
11. Week 11Looking Without AskingAudit
12. Week 12What You Can Actually SayAuditWaiting Audit due

Assessment progression

Four assessments move from personal observation to analysis, experimentation and whole-system audit.

1. Waiting Field Notes15% · due Week 4
2. Queue Case Study20% · due Week 9
3. Waiting Experiment25% · due Week 10
4. Waiting Audit40% · due Week 12

Who it is for

Anyone who has stood in a queue, waited on hold, or watched a progress bar and wondered why five identical minutes never feel the same — interaction design, service design and behavioural science students fit naturally, but the only real prerequisite is a willingness to start a log of your own waits in Week 1 and keep rereading it all semester.

Where to go next