A recent study is claiming that mobile web browsing is 30% slower than typical online browsing.
I'd like to learn more about this study... Most desktop users (in North America, anyway) now browse with high speed Internet. But many only access the Internet at work where they have T3 speeds (learn more about T1 vs. T3 here). On the other side of the spectrum, some still use dial-up.
On the mobile side, some users have 3G, and some only browse when their HTC TyTn finds a WiFi connection.
Smartphone users are increasingly allowing their devices to be absorbed in to their daily lives. In particular, a new study shows the mobile web is popular with commuters. I'm one of those who browses on the way to work - I regularly browse mobile cbc.ca and The Onion Mobile, among other small screen friendly sites.
But The Onion recently eliminated their nice clean text only WAP site, and now forces me to download images. I could set my browser not to download images, but other mobile sites are more sparing with their use of jpgs, and I prefer that because like all consumers, I'm impatient but still want a good experience. I can only get through about half the content that I could before in the same amount of time, and I wonder if the flashier site is worth it.
Perhaps they are just staying ahead of the curve, but it's frustrating. And when users get frustrated, they go elsewhere.
What I'm really wondering is whether the stat is much worse than 30% for most of the population, given how bad mobile browsing is on some phones.
It just made me think about the implications for mobile market research. We need to make sure we present our mobile survey participants with fast-to-load and easy-to-navigate surveys, otherwise they're not going to participate in another cellphone survey until the wireless web catches up with the regular web for all users in every city on every phone.
I'd like to learn more about this study... Most desktop users (in North America, anyway) now browse with high speed Internet. But many only access the Internet at work where they have T3 speeds (learn more about T1 vs. T3 here). On the other side of the spectrum, some still use dial-up.
On the mobile side, some users have 3G, and some only browse when their HTC TyTn finds a WiFi connection.
Smartphone users are increasingly allowing their devices to be absorbed in to their daily lives. In particular, a new study shows the mobile web is popular with commuters. I'm one of those who browses on the way to work - I regularly browse mobile cbc.ca and The Onion Mobile, among other small screen friendly sites.
But The Onion recently eliminated their nice clean text only WAP site, and now forces me to download images. I could set my browser not to download images, but other mobile sites are more sparing with their use of jpgs, and I prefer that because like all consumers, I'm impatient but still want a good experience. I can only get through about half the content that I could before in the same amount of time, and I wonder if the flashier site is worth it.
Perhaps they are just staying ahead of the curve, but it's frustrating. And when users get frustrated, they go elsewhere.
What I'm really wondering is whether the stat is much worse than 30% for most of the population, given how bad mobile browsing is on some phones.
It just made me think about the implications for mobile market research. We need to make sure we present our mobile survey participants with fast-to-load and easy-to-navigate surveys, otherwise they're not going to participate in another cellphone survey until the wireless web catches up with the regular web for all users in every city on every phone.
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