| This study examined system response time on the World Wide Web. This was done by examining how long participants would wait for web pages to load before abandoning a web site and if download delays affected whether or not participants revisited a web site. The effects of different demographic characteristics, such as age (young adults/older adults), Internet experience level (novice/experienced), and type of Internet connection on tolerance for delays relating to three types of common Internet tasks (information retrieval/purchasing/downloading a text file) were investigated.; In general, the results of this investigation demonstrated that: (1) Older adults waited longer to leave web sites and switched sites less frequently than younger adults, (2) Internet experience and task type did not effect delay time or number of site changes, (3) high-speed connection users left web sites faster and switched sites more frequently than those accustomed to dial-up connections, (4) a majority of participants revisited sites with short delays, and (5) sites with short delays were rated higher on standardized satisfaction measures. These findings have direct implications for web site design. |
