4 Seconds Loading Time Is Maximum For Websurfers

nieske writes "Of course we all want webpages to load as fast as possible, but now research has finally shown it: four seconds loading time is the maximum threshold for websurfers. Akamai and JupiterResearch have conducted a study among 1,000 online shoppers and have found, among other results, that one third of respondents have, at one point, left a shopping website because of the overall 'poor experience.' 75% of them do not intend ever to come back to this website again. Online shopper loyalty also increases as loading time of webpages decreases. Will this study finally show developers of shopping websites the importance of the performance of their websites?"

This survey was sponsored by...

[MagicM]

How convenient for Akamai. A survey done by them shows that webpages need to load faster or you could lose money. And you wouldn't want that, now would you?

About Akamai
Akamai® is the leading global service provider for accelerating content and business processes online. Thousands of organizations have formed trusted relationships with Akamai (...)

Re:Disturbing...

[vG_NeSS_Vg]

Just use the "Plain HTML" feature of Gmail. I can't provide simple one line answers for all the other websites you visit, and I'm pretty sure I don't want to see your viewing habits. I'm no NSA.

FlashBlock

[Midnight Thunder]

This is one tool I really find useful for Firefox:

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/433/ [mozilla.org]

If you can't stand flash, then its for you.

What the fuck are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

What in the name of glorious fuck are you talking about? Microsoft was the original developer of XMLHttpRequest! IE has supported it longer than any other browser, include those put out by the Mozilla Project.

From the Wikipedia page about XMLHttpRequest [wikipedia.org]:

The XMLHttpRequest concept was originally developed by Microsoft as part of Outlook Web Access 2000. The Microsoft implementation is called XMLHTTP and, as an ActiveX object, it differs from the published standard in a few small ways. It has been available since Internet Explorer 5.0 and is accessible via JScript, VBScript and other scripting languages supported by IE browsers.

The Mozilla project incorporated the first compatible native implementation of XMLHttpRequest in Mozilla 1.0 in 2002. This implementation was later followed by Apple since Safari 1.2, Konqueror, Opera Software since Opera 8.0 and iCab since 3.0b352.

I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and I don't think you do, either. Of course Internet Explorer supports AJAX. If it didn't, serices like GMail wouldn't have even been created in the first place. You do realize that the vast majority of the people in the world use IE, right? You won't see a technology become as widespread as AJAX has become if Internet Explorer doesn't support it.

Nielsen said it a long time ago

[rw712]

The (somewhat controversial) web-usability expert, Jakob Nielsen, has had much to say about response times. From his 1994 book, Usability Engineering, he states, "10 seconds is about the limit for keeping the user's attention focused on the dialogue." (reference: http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html [useit.com]). You may have heard of him through his 2000 book, Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. There has been a lot he has written that, in light of new methodologies, still makes good sense/practice.

Re:What the fuck are you talking about?

[GoatMonkey2112]

That is true, but there is an easy workaround to get the exact same functionality from IE.
new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");

Re: Amazon.Com clearned this along time ago.

[AnotherDaveB]

Amazon still codes their pages so they come up "fast" on a 28.8 modem. Ebay is the same.

Doesn't sound like the Amazon and Ebay sites I visit on my 56K modem.

I ran a little test using Safari's show page test load window [webkit.org] option from the debug menu, results below.

• Amazon UK:
  • Total (load) time: 79.275 seconds
• Ebay UK:
  • Total (load) time: 17.54 seconds

Re:tabs

[compro01]

As for all the people saying they still use dialup, why?

because internet service in my area is practically a monopoly. the phone company refuses to run DSL-capable line the 3000 ft from the highway into the village and install the nessesary hardware. they're making buckets of cash off of raping us for our dial up ($60 a month for 180 hours/month of net time, plus the "unlimited long distance" required to be able to get that 180/month plan), not to mention the overage charges they pull if you go over the 180/month, wheras you can get the cheapie 1.5mbps DSL for $15/month in town.

the only other options in the area are wireless high speed (similar to Wi-max), but for that you need to buy the antenna and gear upfront ($250) and satalite internet, with is not an option as a. our satalite provider doesn't do internet and b. it would be useless in any case due to the lag from satalite (stupid laws of physics).