Some people say that loading time - the time it takes for a site to appear fully on a computer screen - is critical to a site's retaining visitors. Others argue that loading time is not nearly as critical as some believe. What do you think? How patient are you in letting sites load onto your computer?
I believe that a site's loading time is a critical factor in regards to the retention or loss of visitors. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, people have quickly become accustomed to not having to wait as long for the average website to load on their computer screen. Wireless Internet has replaced dial-up and sped up the average time it takes to do virtually anything on the world wide web.
These changes have had largely positive results, but they have also made many people impatient. These people, admittedly including myself, do not particularly enjoy waiting a full minute for a website to load onto a computer screen. However, if the site is really great and useful, people will tend to use those qualities to justify the wait.
Firstly, though, people need to see what is on the site in order for them to determine whether or not they think the loading time is worth it. I know that if I am forced to wait for a website to load, I will go off and do other things and forget that I have the website loading and then I will lose interest in it. This is not something I would want to know visitors of my website were doing!
Alas, we are presented with a chicken-or-egg dilemma, so I think that the safe way to retain visitors is for a site to have as quick a loading time as possible so that people immediately know that they like the site and would like to return.
