Tablets are being adopted for personal, professional, and educational use at an astounding rate. However, while they make our lives more mobile, convenient, and fun, tablet use can pose health hazards according to a Harvard study.
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COMMENTARY: So how are tablet owners using their devices? In August 2012, Adobe released a report, based on US consumer survey data (n=1,200), about smartphones, tablets and user behavior. There are numerous findings in the document.
Some of the most interesting concern the specific features or functionality that would help consumers buy via mobile devices (chart below). There were also numerous complaints about the speed of mobile websites (load times) and poor site navigation as areas for improvement.
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We're not digging too deeply into the design and functionality of tablets, which amount to specific product recommendations for e-tailers and developers. Most of the focus here will be on tablet usage.
Most Adobe survey respondents reported using tablets "a few hours every week" or at least 1- 4 hours daily. The array of answers is very awkward and probably confused some of the respondents and results accordingly. Previously (October 2011) Pew found that 77% of survey respondents used their tablets daily. As a general matter people report very high levels of tablet engagement and daily usage (at least of the iPad).
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Like many other surveys before it, the Adobe data also show that the majority of tablet owners use their devices at home. This may change somewhat as the 7-inch tablet category gains momentum. That remains to be seen however.
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The most common activities on tablets were email, games, shopping, reading and video viewing. This is generally consistent with other data, however the video viewing response rates in this survey are somewhat lower as is the amount of news consumption. Pew survey data indicate that 53% of tablet owners consume news on their iPads/tablets on a daily basis.
Adobe neglected to ask about tablet substitution for PC usage. Several surveys make clear that people who own iPads are using their PCs somewhat less to a lot less than prior to owning a tablet.
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Adobe's survey showed that people are also conducting e-commerce on their devices. Nothing new there. Unfortunately the responses aren't broken out by tablet vs. smartphone. If so we'd probably see much more activity on tablets: smartphones are for research/shopping, tablets are for buying.
The data in the following chart reflect the cumulative value of e-commerce spending over the past year, not average purchase value.
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Finally, 60% to 70% of Adobe's respondents said they'd never clicked on a mobile ad. Adobe sees the glass "half full" and says,
"A high percentage of consumers surveyed report that they are clicking through mobile ads presented in both mobile websites and apps, with 42% clicking through ads on mobile websites, and 37% clicking through ads on mobile apps."
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Here's some additional color from Adobe's analysis of the data about mobile ad response:
Consumers are reporting that a majority of advertisers are providing mobile-optimized experiences when they click through ads on both mobile websites (73%) and mobile apps (77%), suggesting that optimization of mobile ad content appears to be prevalent. Men are more likely to click through on mobile ads presented within mobile apps than women (42% versus 32%). Prioritizing a testing roadmap to include campaigns that target men could yield a strong opportunity for conversion optimization.
My anecdotal observation is that still a large percentage of mobile-ad landing pages and sites are not optimized for mobile devices.
Courtesy of an article dated August 21, 2012 appearing in OnlineDegrees.org and an article dated August 15, 2012 appearing in Internet2Go
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