User agency and control serve as cornerstones of design in HCI, with numerous studies fnding that choice improves user experiences. However, few studies examine how users beneft from the act of choosing, independent from the fulfllment of their chosen option; making this distinction is crucial for refning guidelines on when to provide user control. In our experiment on YouTube, participants randomly experienced either a pre-roll ad, a mid-roll ad, or a choice between the two. Participants then rated their subjective experiences. Mid-roll ads negatively afected experience ratings, but ratings between those choosing a pre-roll ad and those assigned a pre-roll ad were similar. That is, the right ad timing had a much larger impact than choosing an ad timing. The fndings suggest that user interfaces should not ofer choices solely for the sake of ofering choices, and suggest scenarios where automation would be preferable to fne-grained user control.
