How can I improve the subjective speed of my application?

Question

Today my co-worker noticed that when adding a decimal place to a progress indicator leads to the impression that the program is running faster than without. (i.e. instead of 1,2

Answer 1

Allow the user to do something else, while your application is processing data or waiting for a result. In application-scope you could allow to do some refinement of a search query or collect information for preparing next steps. Or just present some other "work" necessary to do or just some hints, documentation, statistics, entertainment..