In his current Alertbox, Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen asks the same question most of us ask: How fast can we get what we want? His observations have some interesting implications for the future of mobility.
1 Second
When the computer takes more than 0.1 second but less than 1 second to respond to your input, it feels like the computer is causing the result to appear. Although users notice the short delay, they stay focused on their current train of thought during the one-second interval. … For Web usability, this means that new pages must display within 1 second for users to feel like they’re navigating freely; any slower and they feel held back by the computer and don’t click as readily. …
10 Seconds
After 1 second, users get impatient and notice that they’re waiting for a slow computer to respond. The longer the wait, the more this impatience grows; after about 10 seconds, the average attention span is maxed out. … Users will often leave the site rather than trying to regain the groove once they’ve started thinking about other things. …
1 Minute
Users should be able to complete simple tasks in about 1 minute. Awkward sites that require much more than a minute for basic tasks — such as transferring money from a savings to a checking account — will be abandoned.
Why does this matter today? With broadband, few users wait even a full second for most pages to download, let alone 10 seconds.
It matters because, as we’ve discussed before, half of all adults now connect to the Internet with a mobile phone or some other wireless device, and that proportion will continue to rise. As Nielsen has documented, mobile connections can be even slower than dial-up. Furthermore, because it’s difficult to type accurately and navigate pages with mobile devices’ tiny keyboards and mice, it takes users an average of 2.5 to 3 minutes to complete basic tasks like finding the local weather or looking up TV listings.
If you’re a Web content manager, your future online presence must include a plan for mobile users. “The best approach,” Nielsen writes, “is to auto-sense users’ devices and auto-forward mobile users to the mobile site (even if they’re using a high-end phone).”
Mobile sites should offer a small number of choices and a minimum of keystrokes. Because load times are slow, sites should follow classic guidelines for speeding up websites such as: cut down on widgets, Flash elements, and scripts, and avoid multiple images.
