Twiddling our thumbs while waiting for files to download is one of the great frustrations of our high-speed, technologically interconnected world. Computer scientists are unlikely to eliminate the waiting any time soon – but they've done the next best thing.

Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, working with Zhiquan Yeo and Scott Hudson, has shown that animated pop-up download progress bars which use visual illusions make the process seem around 10 per cent faster than it really is.