Rumors have been circulating recently that Google is considering including the speed of your website as one of the factors it uses in ranking your pages in its search results.
That’s all speculation at this point, but overnight Google announced a new tool that lets you measure your website’s speed, based on data provided by people using the advanced features in their toolbar.
Perhaps they are gearing up for such a change, perhaps not – but importantly as explained on their blog:
Studies have repeatedly shown that speeding up your site leads to increased user retention and activity, higher revenue and lower costs.
It’s worth considering this the next time you’re thinking about large images and special effects that take longer to load. Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. “Would I really want to wait for this?”
(Image credit: Photo Monkey)
Browse related entries: ecommerce, google, strategy, usability, web
Posted in Articles, News on December 3rd, 2009
An article published by usability expert Jakob Nielsen recounts examples of how even a tiny amount of actual test data is better than guessing at what works best on the web.
We may think we know how hard or easy a site will be to use, but until we check with people who aren’t involved in the project you can never be sure.
Jakob observers:
When we actually study real users, we see how slowly they learn about technology and how little their ability to use fancy websites has improved. And, most important, we see how little users care about learning fancy Web techniques. People just want to get in, get their stuff done, and get out. They don’t want to learn.
Usability testing may cost a little more, but the payoffs can be enormous. Read the article here.
(Image courtesy of ChrisL_AK)
Browse related entries: usability, web
Posted in Articles on June 9th, 2009
