Fast, Fun & Touch-friendly: The New Rules For Tablet Websites
In the post-PC era, tablets are taking on a central role in connecting consumer and business users with their online worlds
. But touch-based tablets present an entirely different interface from the point-and-click paradigm of the desk- or laptop-bound Web. And tablet users on the go are frequently stymied by the inherent sluggishness of cellular network connections. Its not an impossible task, though, to create tablet website experiences that satisfy user expectations and, with a little effort, leverage the tablet interface. Benchmark recently sat down with Keynote Mobile Performance Evangelist Herman Ng to get his insight into the tablet website experience, and get a few pointers on how to make it better.
Here is the conversation with Mobile Performance Evangelist Herman Ng
Benchmark: What is your assessment of the current state of
website performance on tablets?Herman Ng: Theres no one score to give across the board. Everybodys at a different level, because everybody is doing different things. Some people are doing their regular sites, some are doing a tablet site. Some are just serving the mobile website, and there are some companies redirecting the user to use the mobile app. Overall,
mobile app performance is just all over the place. There are so many tablets coming out the iPad and some of the Androids are, of course, the mainstream, but there are so many different versions. And then you have 3G and Wi-Fi, and now the iPads LTE. So even the same site is going to be performing differently across different connections, devices and
browsers.Benchmark: Is it safe to assume that, if youre on a Wi-Fi network, its going to perform pretty much as any other device on that Wi-Fi network is going to perform? But 3G would be a different story?Herman Ng: Yes, if youre on Wi-Fi, youre going to get much faster performance, unless you are at a hotspot and theres a lot of people accessing it. I think mobile users understand that when theyre on 3G, theyre going to get slower performance. I think the end user gets it. Theyre not going to blame it all on the site. They anticipate, hey, theres lots of content, but it loads as long as it loads. They realize that and expect that.Benchmark: You feel users have a pretty forgiving attitude.Herman Ng: In their home, its a different story. If they have a good connection, they prefer to use the tablet. But they expect it to load quickly. If in that scenario, something doesnt load quickly, if the site takes longer than usual, then they will move on to another site or to their computer.Benchmark: Have you noticed any corollary between this phase of tablet adoption and a similar phase a few years ago with smartphone adoption, where users are more patient because its new and they understand its over the air? But the more that they use it, the higher their expectations become?Herman Ng: Yes, I think it is true to some degree that the wave of the tablet is in some ways very similar to the smartphone. But in general, when we are using our smartphones, we are literally mobile, and most of the time on a 3G network versus Wi-Fi. I believe for a tablet user, just because of the nature of the tablet you have a larger screen, you are getting more content, you can do more on the tablet I think users will try to avoid a 3G network and find a better connection if they can. But if they are on a 3G network, then yes, things will be very similar to the smartphone experience.Benchmark: The research out there says that anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of tablet users are using their tablets on 3G.Thats a fairly significant number. So it seems like its imperative on website owners to make sure that the 10 or 20 or 30 percent on 3G have a decent experience.Herman Ng: True. The other point I want to bring up is one difference between the tablet and the smartphone is, for a smartphone, 3G is mandatory. You cannot get an iPhone without a data plan. Right?Benchmark: Right.Herman Ng: But with a tablet, its the opposite. You can get a tablet without the data plan, without 3G. Its an option. So there are tablet users who choose to get 3G, but many also who dont.Benchmark: What are the biggest challenges that website owners have in creating a decent experience over 3G?Herman Ng: The tablet has a relatively larger screen size compared to any of the smartphones. So naturally the page you want to serve will have more content, and that will slow things down.And now, to complicate things further, you have the new iPad with the high-resolution Retina display. It makes sense to provide a higher resolution image, but how does that affect the performance? When the user is on 3G, that all comes into question. On the one hand, its good to design for a tablet, but you have to keep the 3G connection, the slower connection, the higher latency in mind. It can end up being a trade-off between performance and the richness of the site, unless you choose to ignore the 3G aspect. If someone already has a very well-designed site on the desktop, they may or may not want to spend the extra effort to adapt it to the tablet.I feel that its on a case-by-case basis. Some companies may have a site that works just fine on a tablet in terms of performance. Others may have so much content on their desktop site that they have to make quite a bit of adjustment to provide good performance.Benchmark: What kind of mistakes do you see people making when it comes to tablets? Obviously trying to push too much content across a 3G connection is a big mistake.Herman Ng: Too much content is definitely the first thing. But the other thing is not doing anything, simply saying, Oh, yeah, a tablet nowadays a tablet is very powerful, it can render pretty much anything, except Flash on the iPad. The biggest mistake is to ignore it completely simply assuming everything that works on the desktop is the same on a tablet.Benchmark: As opposed to a smartphone, where theyd be more forgiving? It makes sense to deliver a special experience for the smartphone that would be more limited.Herman Ng: Yes, on the smartphone, you have a completely different view a scaled down version of a large site. Thats expected, and users will accept that. That brings me to the second big mistake I wanted to point out providing the smartphone site on the tablet. Thats a big no-no. The tablet user has made the investment to buy a tablet. They dont want to see a smartphone site on the tablet at all. They would rather see the desktop site, even though the smartphone site would load faster.So its important to come from the user experience point of view. On the tablet, they expect to swipe, to touch. All those can be done on the smartphone too, but the smartphone interface is limited. The experience is not as rich as a site that is designed specifically for tablets.Benchmark: We know that on the desktop, the threshold now is about two seconds before you start losing people if your site hasnt responded. Based on your experience, what do you think the acceptable duration is for a tablet site to load? How long are people willing to wait?Herman Ng: I believe on the smartphone side, some of our consultants say the minimum performance is a speed of eight seconds. I think on the tablet, on one hand, we can allow more time because we expect there will be more content coming through. But at the same time, one of the things I always tell people is that all of these are mobile devices. With mobile users, attention is very short. When things dont show up, youre going to get distracted and do something else. If a site doesnt load, I can often get the same content from another site. I can go to a competitor.Benchmark: So how would you sum up to the business owner who says to you, What do I do about the tablet? How do I go about creating a site for my tablet users? What are the things youd want me to think about?Herman Ng: This one is more related to
user experience or user interface than performance. I think the first thing is, like you said, if I spent $500 on a tablet I want to take advantage of it. I want to use the touch interface, the gestures, the swipe. If I can swipe on the site thats great swiping to different images, for example. As a user I feel good because Im using the features that come with my tablet. A traditional site will not provide any of that because you will just be navigating up and down, scrolling up and down thats boring. If the site can take advantage of the swipe, if they have a reason to use the camera, to interact with video, or link to an app. All of those come together to take advantage of what the tablet provides.
by: Keynote
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