Commentary

More Users Online, But Get It Right And Load It Fast

According to the Limelight Networks’ second annual The State of the User Experience, people are spending more time online, but how much more time? In 2014, 23% of respondents spent more than 15 hours per week online outside of work. That number increased dramatically in 2015 with 45% indicating they spend more than 15 hours per week online outside of work .

Time Do You Spent Online Each Week, Outside Of Work (Everyone)

Time Spent

2014

2015

15+ hours

23.05%

44.86%

11-15 hours

13.60%

19.07%

8-10 hours

23.94%

18.68%

5-7 hours

39.41%

17.39%

Source: Limelight Network, October 2015

More interesting, though, where one might expect that Millennials are spending the most time connected (41% spending 15+ hours), it is actually the Baby Boomers (51% spending 15+ hours) leading the way, says the report.

Social networking is becoming the most popular online activity, says the report.

In 2014, respondents were asked about their time online by requiring them to rate online activities in terms of how much time they spent performing them. The results clearly showed that users had a very diversified attention span, with “reading news” eking out a narrow margin of victory.

How Respondents Spent The majority of Their Time Online (Ranking)

Watching

2014

2015

Watching video content

#3

#3

Reading news content

#1

#2

Watching live video (sport)

4

7

Shopping on eCommerce

5

5

Researching products

6

4

On social media sites

#2

#1

On gaming sites

7

6

Source: Limelight Network, October 2015 (Ranked activities from highest to lowest in terms of time spent online)

Between commerce and content, there is no question as to the winner, says the report: users spend more time consuming content online than they do shopping.

When the 2015 online activity data is filtered by Millennials, the rank of “watching video online” grew tremendously, rivaling social media activity for the top spot. For Millennials, says the report, it’s clear that time spent online isn’t just about social networking.

Majority Of Time Online

Watching

Everyone 2015

Millennials 2015

Watching video content

#3

#1

Reading news content

#2

#3

Watching live video (sports)

6

6

Shopping on eCommerce

5

5

Researching products

4

4

On social media sites

#1

#1

On gaming sites

6

6

Source: Limelight Network, October 2015 (Ranked activities from highest to lowest in terms of time spent online)

Website performance is a key to successful digital experiences, says the report. In 2014 the majority of the respondents (52%) had indicated that a high-performing website was the most important expectation for a digital experience, reinforced in 2015 at 50%.

Performance Is Key To Digital Experience (Everyone 2015)

 

Performance Ranking

Experience

1

2

3

4

Weighted Average

Fresh and updated content

43.42%

28.39%

28.39%

28.39%

1.93

Performance (streaming with no buffering, pages loading quickly, etc.)

50.15%

14.24%

14.24%

14.24%

1.81

Consistent experience on mobile and desktop

23.46%

32.31%

32.31%

32.31%

2.42

Personalized content

14.56%

21.34%

21.34%

21.34%

2.95

Source: Limelight Network, October 2015

There is a relatively nominal improvement between 2014 and 2015 for the “performance” line item. More interesting, says the report, was the change in the first option, “Fresh and updated content” (In 2014, the weighted average was 2.04 which improved markedly to 1.93 in 2015). It would seem that to users, the freshness of the site is becoming a required component of a positive web experience, concludes the report.

Consumers are appearing to develop much more patience for slow web experiences For example, in 2014, 41% of users reported that they would wait longer than 5 seconds for a website to load, but In 2015, that percentage increased to 52%.

Willingness To Wait For A Website To Load Before You Get Frustrated Or Leave The Site

Wait Time

Everyone, 2014

Everyone, 2015

Less than 1 second

1.67%

1.78%

1-3 seconds

18.92%

16.30%

3-5 seconds

38.62%

30.34%

More than 5 seconds

40.79%

51.58%

Source: Limelight Network, October 2015

Even though consumers’ patience may be rising, approximately 4 out of 10 would still leave a page to buy a product from a competitor if they have to wait too long for the page to load, highlighting the continued importance of maintaining a high-performing website.

Second Chance For Slow Loading?

 

Everyone 2014

Another Try?

Everyone 2015

Another Try?

Yes

36.75%

68.97%

33.40%

72.13%

No

37.44%

8.37%

43.58%

9.09%

I’m not sure

25.81%

22.26%

23.02%

18.77%

Source: Limelight Network, October 2015

The report concludes thatconsumers expect more from their online experiences. Whether personalized content or faster performance, they are clearly voicing an opinion throughout the data that the experience matters, especially when it comes to purchasing a product. To an increasingly discerning user in a more demanding digital world, it’s more important to ensure that online experiences, on a small or large screen, meet these rising expectations.

For additional information and more charts and graphs in PDF format, please visit Limelight Networks here. 

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