What Users Want From Mobile

In July 2011, technology performance company Compuware conducted research revealing the expectations of users utilising mobile web. Their findings, which were based on a survey of over 4,000 mobile users Globally, revealed that customer expectation is not being met when it comes to performance of mobile sites. Below are some of the key findings from Compuware’s study:

The mobile market is out there: and growing.

eBay reported almost $2 billion in sales from mobile devices in 2010. They are expecting to double this figure by the close of 2011.

UK online retailer ASOS reported that December 2010 brought in over £1 million in mobile revenue; doubling their expectations.

Users expect fast mobile web experiences.

Compuware’s report found that users are largely intolerant of slow loading mobile sites. The research shows a direct correlation with page load speeds and user drop offs. The longer the pages take to load, the less likely the user is to wait.

71% of global mobile web users expect websites to load as quickly, almost as quickly or faster on their mobile phone compared to their home computer. This has increased from 58% in 2009.

74% of respondents would only be willing to wait 5 seconds or less for a single web page to load before leaving the site.

57% of global mobile web users had a problem accessing a website in the past year and 47% had a problem accessing an app on their phone. More than 80% of mobile web users would access websites more often from their phone if the experience was as fast and reliable.

Bad mobile experiences significantly affect returning users.

78% of mobile users are only willing to retry a website twice or less, if it does not work first time. This figure increases to 80% when using mobile applications, showing higher user expectations for apps than for mobile sites.

Web users are highly unlikely to recommend or return to a website after a bad experience. Just below half of those surveyed suggested that they would be unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing, with over a third suggesting that they would use a competitor’s service instead.

You can read the full report from Compuware here.