Surfers opine: Keep it simple

'Users want an intuitive design that shows them what they can do and gets them there as quickly as possible.'

Surfers opine:
Keep it simple

Prefer fast-loading sites without lots of rich media

By Marty Beard

    Busy, flashy, feature-packed web sites may look prettier and appear to offer more, but consumers really don’t care.
    If anything, it turns out that content sites equipped with lots of rich media enhancements are actually something of a turn-off.
    According to a recent survey by Jupiter Media Metrix, consumers would rather visit web sites that load up quickly and contain useful information that's easy to find.
    "Users want an intuitive design that shows them what they can do and gets them there as quickly as possible," says Jupiter Media Metrix analyst Cormac Foster.
    "To make the best use of their budgets in the near term, most companies should avoid risky, glamorous web enhancements."
    Forty percent of the consumers surveyed by Jupiter said they’d be more likely to visit a news or information content site if its pages were less cluttered and thus faster loading.
    Just 20 percent of respondents said that adding more media would be enough of an attraction to draw them to a given web site more often.
    The percentages suggest that consumers actually would prefer to see less media on web sites, including bandwidth-hogging rich media applications.
    It's not hard to understand why. For all the buzz over the advantages of broadband internet access, including faster-loading pages, a majority of users still go online via dialup connections, typically 56K modems.
    According to Nielsen//NetRatings, about 65 million people were using 56K modems to go online in July, versus about 17 million broadband users.
    Jupiter Media Metrix’s findings appear to extend as well to rich-media ads.
    "There's still room for rich media, certainly, and in many cases rich media can make a lot of sense," Foster says.
    "Gratuitous rich media, on the other hand, wastes development resources and clogs the pipe, slowing performance. Businesses should have a clear idea of what they're doing and why before launching any rich media strategy."
    The study also found that a significant number of consumers are attracted to sites that allow them to personalize features.
    Thirty-six percent of the respondents said they’d like to be able to customize the layouts and even the colors of the sites they visit. And 31 percent reported that community features such as chat and polls were a big attraction.
    Additionally the study found that web users are less than excited about another often-hyped feature: the ability to access a site’s content over a handheld device. Just 15 percent consider that to be a significant advantage, according to the survey.
    Ultimately, the report recommends that web publishers get out there and ask consumers what they'd like to see on web sites.
    "Web businesses can make a lot of educated guesses based on log analysis and other secondary sources, but the only way to truly understand your users is to engage them in a dialogue," Foster says.
    "But having a feedback box on your site is not a dialogue--it's a way to solicit opinions from users who already have strong feelings. Surveying a cross-section of users allows you to identify problems and strengths early in the process."

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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