As professionals in the digital industry, we’ve been on high-speed Internet connections for quite a while, at both home and work. So I found value in a recent CNN article that reminded me there still is significant opportunity for growth. According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project, 55% of Americans have broadband, and 10% have dialup at home. The 35% of Americans who still don’t have access to the internet from home are primarily those with lower incomes and the elderly.
Since it’s my job to create the best digitial experiences for users who are already online, unfortunately I’ll need to figure out how I can help those who don’t have internet access another day. My immediate concern is ensuring we design and develop sites that those still on dial-up can use.
Small Percentage, Mighty Number
A colleague of mine made a valuable point that when you only look at the people online, 95.7% have broadband and only 4.3% have dial-up, according to a recent MAGNA Global study. But that 4.3% on dial-up still represents 3.2 million Americans. The MAGNA study forecasts that the number on dial-up will continue to fall during the next few years, but according to the Pew study that won’t happen until prices for broadband become more reasonable for lower-income Americans.
In the meantime, 3.2 million Americans is a small percentage, but a mighty number. Let’s not forget about them as we plan our digital experiences. While sites can be optimized for high-speed connections, dial-up users should still be able to access key pages and functionality without the page hanging up or taking an unreasonable amount of time to deliver. What if it’s a checkout page for an e-commerce site? That’s too many customers to ignore. Plus an increasing percentage of users are accessing the same sites from their mobile phones, with even slower connections.
Your Site’s Dial-up Percentage
Of course, your site analytics are the tell-tale factor to determine how many of your site users have broadband vs. dial-up. A site like Wired.com probably won’t optimize for dial-up users as Knitting World would.
And that’s just the U.S. As another colleague of mine pointed out, if your site has global reach, it’s important to look at the broadband vs. dial-up adoption rate in your target countries. Chances are that will bring your broadband percentage down too.
Championing All Connections
I look forward to the day when everyone is on broadband connections from their homes, and I can access the internet while I’m on a plane or riding in a car. And the day when page load times aren’t much of a factor. But until then, I want to be a champion for all users, big connection or small.