According to the "2015 State of the User Experience" Report released by Limelight Networks, Inc., a provider of digital content delivery, time spent online in the past year has dramatically increased-with 45% of respondents spending more than 15 hours a week on their laptop, tablet, or phone. Who is the group making up the majority of these power users? It's Baby Boomers-individuals aged 51-69. More than half (51%) are online 15 hours/week, as opposed to Millennials-individuals aged 18-33-at just 41%.
Last year, users were asked if they would be willing to wait longer for a website to load on a mobile device, versus a laptop or desktop, and 44% said they would. This year, the results are startlingly different-only 35% said they would be willing to wait longer on a mobile device, and nearly 40% expect equally fast-loading sites, regardless of if the page is accessed from a mobile device or a laptop/desktop.
Respondents listed "social media sites," "reading news content," and "watching video content" as their top three online activities, respectively, while "reading news content" was the most popular in 2014. E-commerce finished in fifth place, behind researching products online. There is no question -- users are consuming content more than shopping online.
While social media remains the most popular online activity, Millennials are spending nearly as much time watching online video-which is likely to increase as additional options, such as live sporting events, are made more available.
Last year, the majority (52%) of participants listed a high-performing website as their most critical expectation, with just 41% willing to wait more than five seconds for a website to load. While performance was still critical in 2015, patience is on the rise for Internet consumption-this year, 52% would wait more than five seconds. Moreover, this year, 33% said they would leave a website to buy a product from a competitor if the site loaded too slowly, down from 37% last year. Additionally, in 2015, 72% would be willing to give the slow-loading site a try in the future, up from 69% last year.
Last year, the report stated that the "value of web experience personalization remains to be seen"-as 37% indicated they did not want a website to remember them from a previous visit. This year, the results are dramatically different as just 25% don't want a highly-personalized experience.
(limelight.com)