Mobile browser user experience is unacceptable
Compuware Gomez did a commendable thing when it designed the Retail User Experience (UX) Index we described on December 2nd–it applied the same two-second performance response time threshold to the experience of a user accessing a retail site from a PC as well as a mobile device. Gomez could have said that because low bandwidth and congestion inevitably degrade the mobile user experience, the response time threshold should be longer than two seconds for mobile users. This would, however, constitute “moving the goalpost” because a person who uses an iPhone to shop, also uses a PC to shop, and wishes the two experiences to be equally good. Moving the Apdex goalpost would paper over the differences in the two experiences, which would be disrespectful to the user.
So how did the PC versus mobile experiences stack up over the busiest online shopping period of the year? Apdex scores for the Top 15 Websites accessed from a PC were consistent and good over the measurement period, with an average Apdex score of 83. The Top 15 Websites operate robust properties that clearly stand out from the crowd when compared to the Retail 500 websites, which only had an average Apdex score of 65. But when accessed from a mobile phone the Apdex scores for the same Top 15 Websites plummet from an averages score of 83 when accessed from a PC to only 47 when accessed using a Verizon Droid phone or AT&T iPhone–that is nearly half the PC-accessed Apdex score. That is not good at all. The experience for mobile phone users is quite simply unacceptable , and much work needs to be done to boost the mobile user’s browsing experience.
Check out the UX Index here to see the Compuware Gomez UX Index results.
