How Slow Pages Hurt the Entire User
Understanding
the neurological impact
Experience
of poor performance
Tammy Everts
RWD Summit – April 2014
It’s a mobile-first world. 55% of all time spent on retail sites takes place on a mobile device.
comScore, October 2013
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Stuart McMillan, Schuh’s Journey to RWD (Conversion Conference 2013)
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Four all-too-common mobile assumptions
Assumption #1
My site isn’t slow on mobile.
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Radware, 2013 State of the Union: Mobile Ecommerce Performance
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Radware, 2013 State of the Union: Mobile Ecommerce Performance
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Two things are slowing down your site for mobile (and they’re completely beyond your control).
• Latency – can range from 35 milliseconds to 350+ milliseconds per resource (e.g. images,
CSS files)
• Connection – 3G can be up to 15 times slower than broadband
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RWD is awesome, but it *can* come with performance penalties.
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Assumption #2
Mobile users expect pages to be slow.
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Keynote, 2012 Mobile User Survey
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Assumption #3
Mobile users want to browse, not buy.
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By 2017, retail mcommerce is expected to hit
$113 billion –
26% of total ecommerce sales.
eMarketer, September 2013
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Mobile shopping cart abandonment rate is 39% greater than desktop rate.
2013 Google I/O
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Assumption #4
Users will stick around, even if pages are slow, if they really want to buy.
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Skava/Harris Interactive, 2013
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Case study: The impact of HTML delay on mobile business metrics
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Why neuroscientific mobile testing? Slide 20
• 2010 EEG study of desktop users • Throttled connection from
5MB to 2MB
• Found that participants had to concentrate up to 50% harder • Afterward, participants reported negative brand associations Slide 21
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What is emotional engagement research?
“95% of the consumer’s decisions are made at the subconscious level.”
Dr. Gerald Zaltman, Harvard UniversityExecutive Committee of Harvard
University’s
Mind, Brain and Behavior Interfaculty Initiative
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The problem with surveys… Traditional research relies on eliciting postcognitive responses.
But thinking and talking about emotions changes and distorts them.
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Five benefits of neuroscientific testing 1
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Our research team
• Seren – leaders in customer experience & service design • NeuroStrata – expert consultants in blending neuromarketing applications
• Neurosense – global leader in implicit methodologies Slide 29
The brands we tested
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Our testers
• 24 testers (12 male and 12 female)
• Pre-screened to ensure normal cognitive functioning • Experienced mobile device users
• Did not know they were part of a performance study Slide 31
Methodology
• Standardized set of shopping tasks (browsing and checkout) • Testers served sites over one of two speeds:
– normal Wifi
– artificial 500ms delay
• Using EEG headset and eyetracker, measured moment-by-moment responses
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Why test a 500ms delay?
Case study: The impact of HTML delay on mobile business metrics
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We focused on the metrics most affected by the
500ms delay.
Frustration
Emotional engagement
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Normal speed
2.66s
2.92s
2.83s
4.24s
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Frustration levels across sites (normal speed) Slide 38
