---
title: "Doherty Threshold - Air Market"
description: "Sometimes an app is not broken, it just feels slow to use, and people lose their place. This helps you work out where that feeling comes from and agree a limit for how long the system may take to ans…"
canonical: "https://airmarket.ai/app/doherty-threshold"
---

[Air Market](/) / [Design](/category/design) / Doherty Threshold

Skill by [MC Dean](/@owl-listener)

# Doherty Threshold

Find out why your product feels slow, then set a target

## What this does

Sometimes an app is not broken, it just feels slow to use, and people lose their place. This helps you work out where that feeling comes from and agree a limit for how long the system may take to answer. Reach for it when someone says the product drags, or when you need a number to hold work to. If you also need to design the wait itself, that is a different skill.

### Top 3 things it does for you

- Diagnose why something feels sluggish
- Set a response-time budget
- Decide how fast is fast enough

## Information

**Doherty Threshold at a glance**

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Kind | Skill |
| Publisher | [MC Dean](/@owl-listener) |
| Category | [Design](/category/design) |
| Works with | Agent Skills - an open standard supported by 40+ agents |
| Size | 4 KB |
| Licence | MIT |
| Repository | [Owl-Listener/designer-skills](https://github.com/Owl-Listener/designer-skills/tree/20e34c4a587e5eb09fcdf8351fa97b3ad761b31e/interaction-design/skills/doherty-threshold) |
| GitHub stars | 2,144 (as of Nov 2026) |

## Security report

**Verified.** AIR scanned this exact version of Doherty Threshold and flagged nothing. AIR's verdict: **safe**.

**What Doherty Threshold's check was run against**

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Commit | 20e34c4a587e5eb09fcdf8351fa97b3ad761b31e |
| Content hash | dcca941b028def050ba7b4dc5daa20d1b932cd1fb23e36413ecbb9c0b1f17d6a |
| Files read | [Browse the files at this exact commit](https://github.com/Owl-Listener/designer-skills/blob/20e34c4a587e5eb09fcdf8351fa97b3ad761b31e/interaction-design/skills/doherty-threshold/SKILL.md) |

A scan is named by the exact content it read, not by a version number. A different version is a different artifact, and nothing here applies to a version AIR has not scanned.

[Read the full security report for Doherty Threshold](/security/doherty-threshold)

## About Doherty Threshold

This applies the Doherty Threshold: keeping system response under a set point so a person stays in flow rather than being pulled out of it.

Use it when you are diagnosing perceived slowness, or when you need to set a performance budget. For deciding what to show during a wait that cannot be avoided, it points you to the loading-states skill instead.

## What's inside

- SKILL.md - instructions

## Questions

### Is Doherty Threshold safe to install?

AIR scanned this exact version of Doherty Threshold and flagged nothing. AIR's verdict: safe. The verdict is named by the content that was read, at commit 20e34c4a587e, so it cannot drift onto a version nobody scanned. The full report is at https://airmarket.ai/security/doherty-threshold.

### How do I install Doherty Threshold?

Open https://airmarket.ai/app/doherty-threshold on Air Market and use the install action: Air Market hands Claude a prompt naming this exact skill, and Claude sets it up. Source, pinned to the exact commit this listing describes: https://github.com/Owl-Listener/designer-skills/tree/20e34c4a587e5eb09fcdf8351fa97b3ad761b31e/interaction-design/skills/doherty-threshold. Install from that link, not the branch.

## Related on Air Market

- [More Design listings](/category/design)
- [Everything by MC Dean](/@owl-listener)

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Canonical URL: <https://airmarket.ai/app/doherty-threshold>