Slow loading pages increases users' blood pressure: Study

Other reasons for major increase include pop-up ads, auto-play music and broken pages

Dec 09, 2020 03:43:00 AM | Article | Campaign India Team Share -

According to a study by UX agency Cyber Duck, slow loading pages cause website users the most stress and see a 21% increase in their blood pressure. Average blood pressure levels jumped from 111 mm Hg to 134 mm Hg. This led to an increase of 21% in blood pressure levels.

The average page load times of the websites used in the study were between 8.8-10.5 seconds and participants used words such as ‘frustrating’ and ‘excruciating’ to describe the page load speeds. Participants felt anything above five seconds for a page load time is ‘inconvenient’ and ‘unacceptable’.

In second place come multiple pop-ups. They caused participants’ blood pressures to rise from 108 mm Hg to 130 mm Hg. The pop-ups participants saw during the experiment included newsletter subscriptions, discount codes, sale awareness and trial offer pop-ups. Participants stated that the use of multiple pop-ups was ‘annoying’ and ‘unnecessary’.

In third place on this list is 'auto-play music' as participants’ blood pressure elevated by an average of 20%, from 106 mm Hg to 127 mm Hg. Users thought the unwelcome blaring of auto-play music on the websites was ‘infuriating’ and ‘disruptive’.

In comparison, auto-play videos fared better in fifth place as participants’ blood pressure surged from 104 mm Hg to 121 mm Hg, a 16% increase. Even though users found auto-play videos ‘distracting’, they said it was easier for them to spot and turn off the source of the sound compared to auto-play music.

Website issues causing the most stress

Rank

Website Issue

Average Blood Pressure (mm Hg) Before Dealing with Website Issue

Average Blood Pressure (mm Hg) After Dealing with Website Issue

% Change (from Before to After)

Slow loading pages

111

134

21%

Multiple pop-ups

108

130

20%

Auto-play music

106

127

20%

Broken pages (i.e. 404 Error)

107

125

17%

Auto-play videos

104

121

16%

Non-clickable call-to-action buttons

105

120

14%

Hard to read fonts

104

118

13%

Images not loading

101

113

12%

Multiple image sliders

109

10%

10.

Disorienting animations

102

107

110 participants were assigned for each website issue category. Systolic (mm Hg) blood pressure readings used for study.The age range of participants in the study was between 20 – 58 years and none of the participants had any illnesses/health conditions before taking part in the study. None of the participants in the study had a working and/or educational background in information systems (IT), technology or web development/design. All included participants stated they were ‘very confident’ or ‘confident’ users of the internet prior to the study.