A neuroscience study measuring user reactions to network performance shows that heart rate and stress levels increase when a person encounters delays in loading web pages and videos.
The measured levels of stress can be compared to other situations in everyday life such as watching a horror movie or solving a mathematical problem and greater than waiting in a check-out line at the grocery store.
The study, commissioned by Ericsson ConsumerLab and included in the Ericsson Mobility Report on the Networked Society released in February, measured brain activity, eye movements, and pulse while subjects completed various tasks by browsing the web and watching video clips.
The participants were exposed to a high degree of delays, a medium degree of delays or no delays at all while they completed tasks. Responses to initial load time (time-to-content) and pauses due to re-buffering while watching videos were recorded and analyzed.
The results help to uncover how variations in network performance can impact consumer experience and ultimately affect brand equity.
Among the findings of the study is that on average, single delays resulted in a 38% increase in heart rate. A medium delay of 2 seconds when loading videos led to average stress levels to go from 13% to 16% above the baseline. Once a video started to stream, a pause due to re-buffering caused stress levels to further increase by 15 percentage points.
The study also noted with high time-to-content delays of six seconds, half of the participants exhibited a 19% increase relative to baseline levels while the other half exhibited signs of resignation – their eye movements indicated distraction and stress levels dropped.
Beyond the effect of poor network performance on individuals, the report concluded that it also has an effect on brand perception as participants who experienced no performance delays demonstrated a net increase in brand engagement.
"This suggests that they became happier with their mobile service provider. In comparison, the groups subjected to medium and high delays displayed neutral and even negative brand engagement," the report cited.
"Interestingly, medium delays resulted in a double negative effect on the service provider, as they not only decreased brand engagement with consumers but also caused an increase in engagement with competitor brands. Meanwhile, users who faced high delays responded negatively to all mobile service provider brands. "