How much does mobile site performance matter?
A lot. Morgan Stanley predicts the volume of mobile web users will outstrip the number of desktop internet users by 2015. According to Forrester Research, mobile commerce will top $6 billion by the end of 2011 and reach $31 billion by 2016.
The mobile web holds tremendous potential as a channel for building customer relationships, loyalty and revenues, but there are several common mistakes companies make on the road to mobile web success. Here’s a look at these mistakes and suggestions for avoiding them:
Not Figuring Out the Best Mobile Design Option for Your Business: Some businesses may be tempted to offer their traditional “fixed” website as is to mobile users, since it has worked well with PC users. But unless your website content is extremely lean and streamlined, void of photos and rich media (not the case for most businesses today), this may not be a viable option. The same feature- and content-richness that distinguishes your website can pose significant usability, navigation and even screen real estate issues on hand-held mobile devices.
Before you embark on a mobile initiative, the first step must be determining the best mobile design option for your business: allow customers to interact with your website using mobile devices; deliver a mobile-optimized site or offer native mobile applications. Ultimately, the answer boils down to knowing your users, understanding what they want to do on the mobile web and how they use it. If they don’t expect much in the way of content and feature-richness, you may be able to simply offer your existing website. But if users expect to be able to complete key transactions quickly – or with one hand while they’re on the move – a mobile site that’s optimized just for them, in terms of content, site design and navigation, may be best. Finally, if mobile users want access to deals and incentives above all else versus conducting actual transactions on a mobile site, a mobile apps strategy may be the way to go.
Not Understanding Performance from the User Perspective: It’s impossible to gauge how mobile users are actually experiencing your mobile site and its applications by considering only the infrastructure within your datacenter. Your web servers and load balancers may be running ok, but there are many more variables beyond the firewall that ultimately impact mobile users’ experiences across a wide range of geographies. These variables include: major ISPs, third-party services adding features and functionalities to your site, content delivery networks, cloud service providers, local ISPs, mobile carriers, mobile devices and more. In fact, mobile devices and browsers are perhaps the most challenging variables because they “behave” and download content in different ways.
Industry research shows that as many as two-thirds of all performance failures are the result of an element outside the firewall. Yet no matter where the problems arise, the blame – and the consequences – will fall on you. Therefore, optimizing mobile site performance must begin with a true view of the user experience across your highest-priority devices and geographies (i.e., iPhone users in North America). By seeing first-hand which user segments may be vulnerable to poor performance, you can take the proper steps to isolate and fix faulty performance-impacting variables, ideally before mobile users are even aware an issue exists.
For starters, there are instant tests available which can help make sure mobile site content renders properly across key mobile platforms. Going a step further, worldwide testing networks comprising real user devices from around the world can give you a quick and easy bird’s eye view into user experiences across the most popular devices. If you detect less than optimal mobile site speed for a particular user segment, advanced diagnostics can help you pinpoint the source of the problem whether it’s in your datacenter, the user’s device or something in between. For example, if you determine a poorly performing local ISP to be the culprit, you may need to lighten mobile site content even further in order to maintain speed. If a mobile browser is the source of the problem, you may consider reducing the number of browser connections enabled through your mobile site, since some mobile browsers seem to perform better through fewer connections.
Falling Short of Expectations, Particularly When it Comes to Speed: As more consumers do more online with their fully-featured smart phones, their expectations for high-quality mobile web experiences are growing, especially when it comes to speed. A new consumer survey reports that 71 percent of mobile web users expect websites to load as quickly or even faster on their mobile phone compared to the computer they use at home – up from 58 percent in 2009. In reality, almost half (46 percent) of the consumers surveyed reported that websites load more slowly on their phones. In addition, 73 percent (up from 20 percent in 2009) are willing to wait only five seconds or less for a single web page to load before leaving the site. And yet behavioral data shows that 77 percent of top companies’ mobile sites take more than five seconds to load.
Most mobile users expect to make sacrifices – in terms of content depth and feature-richness – in exchange for the convenience of any-time, any-place mobile web access. But one thing they won’t sacrifice is speed, and they continue to rank speed as more important than functionality in determining the overall quality of an online experience.
Some businesses, aiming to deliver a consistent user experience across their main website and their mobile site, may be maintaining too much content on their mobile site. The rule of thumb for mobile-optimized sites is to “keep it clean” by reducing unnecessary “heavy” content based on the knowledge of what mobile users want and expect when they’re on the go. For example, you may consider doing away with a “ratings and reviews” application that involves extensive user input.
Failing to Recognize and Redirect Mobile Users to Your Mobile Site: Because delivering a strong experience is impossible if users can’t “find” you on the mobile web, you must ensure easy access to your mobile site. This means detecting and redirecting mobile users away from your main, fixed website and toward your mobile site, as well as making sure that any sponsored and/or organic search engine links redirect mobile users in a similar fashion. Otherwise, users will most likely get routed to your PC website which may result in a non-optimized mobile web experience. This can be very dangerous, considering increased expectations for snappy mobile web experiences from the get-go.
Not Preparing for Peak Traffic Loads: Smartphones are quickly emerging as a computing platform of choice and with more users, it’s no longer good enough for your mobile site to be prepared for “ordinary” business conditions. You also have to be prepared for peak conditions, which may mean load testing.
Given the performance demands of mobile web users, when higher than usual mobile web traffic volumes lead to unbearably slow load times, revenues, brand image and customer relationships can be jeopardized. Like “traditional” websites, businesses must now carefully ensure their mobile sites and infrastructure can handle peak traffic conditions when user expectations are at their highest, such as the holidays or when you’re leveraging a mobile ad network to drive increased traffic to your site. And, load tests must be based on an understanding of the mobile user experience under load – once again, offering businesses the chance to optimize the performance of all elements that influence the mobile user experience during heavy traffic periods.
As the smartphone market continues to explode, mobile users’ tolerance for slow, unsatisfying mobile web experiences continues to diminish. To realize the full potential of the mobile web as a customer interaction channel, businesses must deliver user experiences that rival the excellence of a desktop PC. Fortunately, mobile site performance can be enhanced using the same tools as the traditional web, and mobile web experiences that are fast, reliable, consistent and convenient are no longer a “nice to have” – they’re now a consumer expectation.
Amir Rozenberg is Product Manager for the Application Performance Management Business division of Compuware.
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