Poor Web Performance Results In Tablet Users Less Likely To Make Purchases Online

Compuware Corporation, the technology performance company, has published the findings of the first global study of tablet users’ web experience expectations. The survey reveals that global tablet users have high expectations for web experiences and a third are less likely to make purchases online from companies that don’t meet those expectations.

Tablet users expect websites and transactions to work flawlessly. Their expectations have been shaped in part by years of using powerful PCs to access fast websites delivered by Internet leaders like Amazon and Google. The survey reveals that users expect tablets to perform as fast, or faster, than on a desktop or laptop computer at home.

However, the new global survey titled “Engaging the Tablet User: What They Expect from Websites,” reveals that four out of ten global tablet users have experienced a problem when accessing websites. Among those that experienced a problem, two-thirds reported slow load times, and more than four out of ten experienced website crashes or problems with website functions.

Key survey findings include:

Poor web experiences on tablets impact the bottom line.

• A bad website experience will also drive 46 percent of tablet users to competitive web sites; 35 percent are less likely to visit the problematic web site on any platform; and 33 percent are less likely to purchase from that company.

• Nearly half of tablet users will retry a web site only once or twice if it did not work initially.

Tablet users’ web experience expectations are high.

• Almost 70 percent of tablet users expect a web site to load in two seconds or less.

Website issues are common for tablet users.

• Among those who have experienced a problem, slow load times are the most frequently cited issue (66 percent), followed by site crashes (44 percent), problems with site functions (42 percent) and issues with site format (40 percent).

“Consumers and enterprises have embraced tablets in large numbers for everything from web browsing and social networking to key business applications that increase employee productivity and drive revenue,” said Steve Tack, CTO of Compuware APM. “However, based on the survey results, companies are not meeting tablet users’ web experience expectations. Tablet users represent a coveted audience that in general tends to spend more per order, so organisations that ignore tablet users do so at their own peril.”