News: 4 Seconds as the New Threshold of Acceptability for Web Page Response Times

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Arroxane reports: << "Akamai and JupiterResearch Identify '4 Seconds'  
as the New Threshold of Acceptability for Retail Web Page Response  
Times"   http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2006/ 
press_110606.html
It's interesting that users feel poor site performance was the second- 
worst problem with consumer websites; the first being high prices and  
shipping fees.>>

It's important to note that this study, like many others of its kind,  
have a serious hole in the logic: the authors don't strongly account  
for the motivation of the user of the site and other "intentional and  
contextual" factors. For example, someone who is highly motivated to  
use a site and who has had previous good experiences with being  
patient with that site will be prepared to wait. A casual visitor who  
is not highly motivated to use your site or who has previously found  
a site to be unproductive, will give up at the first sign of delays  
rather than waiting through endless graphics downloads and chintzy  
Flash animations.

Similarly, those who have no alternatives (e.g., when using a  
government site to download forms) are more likely to sit and cuss,  
whereas those who have many alternatives (e.g., online shoppers) will  
quickly go elsewhere.

The overall point of the study is nonetheless a very important one.  
If you can motivate your audience to stay, <Fe> then you have a  
captive audience you can abuse at your leisure. </Fe>* If you can't  
motivate them, then you need to be concise and to respond quickly  
until you can motivate them to stay.

* Less facetiously, you should make your site efficient for all  
users, but where maximum efficiency isn't possible, this means that  
speed is less important for motivated audiences than for unmotivated  
audiences.

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Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca

(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)

www.geoff-hart.com

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