Posted on 05/26/2008 2:39:18 PM PDT by Aristotelian
Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research.
The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online.
Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.
Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.
Search rules
Instead, many are "hot potato" driven and just want to get a specific task completed.
(snip)
This makes them very resistant to highlighted promotions or other editorial choices that try to distract them.
"Web users have always been ruthless and now are even more so," said Dr Nielsen.
"People want sites to get to the point, they have very little patience," he said.
(snip)
Web users were also getting very frustrated with all the extras, such as widgets and applications, being added to sites to make them more friendly.
Such extras are only serving to make pages take longer to load, said Dr Nielsen.
There has also been a big change in the way that people get to the places where they can complete pressing tasks, he said.
In 2004, about 40% of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60% use a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25% of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there.
"Basically search engines rule the web," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Matter of fact, this is the way many, if not most, men shop. What says to me that the Web is inculcating women with male habits. Hmmm. That could have interesting possibilities.
An alternate title could have been “Web Providers Becoming More Narcissistic”.
Definitely! Turns me off and irritates me.
(Back then, more than a few web owners with access to T-1 lines assumed that everyone else must've had access to one also, or why bother?)
I don’t see how using a web site to obtain the information you’re looking for, then going on to the next task, equates to ‘’selfish’’. I don’t care to waste time on unproductive tasks on line — and for that matter, I don’t care for sales pitches, particularly ‘’upselling’’. If I wanted something different than what I’m searching for or purchasing, I would have asked for it.
This behavior makes the user “selfish”?...good god, what arrogance.
This is why it is so difficult to bring in revenue with online advertising. Newspapers, for example, are hoping that they can make their online presences a valid revenue stream. But people don’t dally around and click on whatever ads might be on these sites. They just get what they want/need and go somewhere else.
And in the case of users like me, it’s even worse since I have Adblock Plus and don’t even see the ads in the first place.
Better title:
Web Users Becoming More Discriminating
Exactly.
That’s why FR is “sticky”.
Or maybe even, “Free time to dilly-dally becoming more scarce”
(said while I sit and dilly-dally around on this site...oh well...but you get my point, and I really should be doing chores :-)
tech ping
One of my biggest peeves is bandwidth hogging Flash and Trash and transitions. If a site is taking a while to load because of it, then the heck with them. I want info, not a bunch of “lookit what I (site designer) can do”.
You mean to tell me that you don’t click on the University Of Phoenix ad to check it out? How about the High School chums ad?
Instead, many are "hot potato" driven and just want to get a specific task completed.
Oh no, we're both selfish, ruthless hot potatoes. But nobody told me that an internet website had the right to keep me there indefinitely putting up with all their new drop-down ads, flashing ads, full screen ads......while I'm just trying to find an answer.
I confess, I block and/or cancel every one of their stupid little ads because I won't live forever and it would take that long to get through all their internet garbage!
Sigh....I don’t have time to read this stuff :’)
It is clear that the BBC has gotten more selfish of its ideology, and finds it easier and easier to insult what used to be more widespread common sense. Even the very structure of the lede, with the tick marks, as if their use somehow enables the writer to distance himself from the source is evidence of the trend.
These semi-quotes get almost ridiculous sometimes, like when the story originates in a quote or statement by Bush or the US military in Iraq. Like: Terrorist ‘blew himself up’, like somehow it might be possible he was sent on his way to the Virgin Cluster in a red mist by some some other means when he pushed the button.
Slooowly he turned,..... step by step,
"High School chums ads!!!" And he choked him and he.....
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