An application’s loading time is a critical factor in the user experience of any type of application, whether it is a mobile or web app. Users typically expect to encounter fast loading times when they are using apps and may even click off of or delete apps that take too long to load. Research compiled by Think with Google found that the probability of users bouncing from a page, or in our case an application, increases to 32% when load time rises from one second to three seconds.
And while there are a number of other factors that tie into creating a good user experience for application users and visitors, including functionality, a visually appealing design, and accessibility, loading times remain a key factor in keeping users on an app. With the ever expanding market of applications out there, ensuring that your app can load quickly and seamlessly is more important than ever.
So, how do you reduce app loading time?
Below, we dig into how you can reduce app loading time and why this can be so effective for retaining users on your application.
Why a Reduction in App Loading Time Can Be Effective
Reducing app loading time is critical to an application’s success. Application loading time and speed help to determine an app’s performance across platforms, whether it is being used on iOS, Android, or on the web. User satisfaction can be expected to drop when loading times are long or high.
Further data from Think with Google in 2016 found that 53% of visits are abandoned if mobile websites take longer than three seconds to load. This tells us that users make the decision to leave a website or application pretty quickly! So, reducing app loading time can go a very long way to keep users from leaving your application and providing them a quick user experience that not only keeps them on your app, but keeps them coming back.
How Do I Reduce App Loading Time?
With an understanding of why reducing app loading time is important, we can now dig into just how you can that loading time. Taking the time to reduce app loading time and optimize application performance as much as possible will help to leave a positive mark on each of your users.
Here are four key ways that you or a company that provides mobile app development services can optimize and reduce app load time for the best user experience possible.
Use a Light Code
Employing a light code, or a minimized code, will help to create an overall better performance from an application. Better performance means that the app’s loading time will reduce. Using a light code essentially breaks down to taking out all of the unnecessary source codes from the codebase of an application.
Light code can be achieved by using languages like CSS, HTML, and JavaScript. These are all languages that allow for mobile app development services to be done with a limited number of files. For example, CSS is technically a style sheet language that is used to separate content and presentation when used.
Optimizing Mobile Application Startup Time
Reducing app loading time can also be achieved by optimizing an application’s startup time. Users can become frustrated if startup time is especially long, so optimizing startup time can go a long way to helping to reduce loading times.
One way to optimize mobile or web application startup time is to consider what specific tasks can be avoided during startup. Think of tasks that are heavy or even unnecessary during startup. By addressing these tasks and taking them out of startup, app startup time will be much quicker. Tasks to consider avoiding during startup include:
- Complex calculations
- Network requests
- Data refreshes
Optimizing Images and Videos
Images and videos eat up a lot of space in any application. And while visual elements help give users a nice look and feel to an application, they do eat up a lot of bandwidth and can negatively impact an app’s loading time. So, optimizing the images and videos in an application will help to address the amount of bandwidth they use.
You can optimize images and videos by compressing and reducing the size as much as possible. But be sure to maintain the quality of each visual element as well. All visual elements in an application should be addressed including:
- Images
- Videos
- GIFs
- Animations
- Icons
- Infographics
- Text and data visualization
Make Use of a Content Delivery System
Lastly, using a Content Delivery System (CDN) can help reduce loading time. A CDN is a collection of distributed servers that help make webpages and applications more accessible to users based on geographic location. As defined by IBM, a CDN “enables[s] faster web performance by locating copies of web content closer to users or facilitating delivery of dynamic content (e.g., live video feeds).”
Particularly for mobile applications that see a lot of traffic and long load times, a CDN can be impactful in cutting down on high loading times. A CDN allows you to shift and reduce bandwidth load, therefore allowing for quicker load times.
Split Reef is a leading Jacksonville mobile app development company. With additional offices based in Columbus, Ohio, they partner with clients across a wide variety of industries, from small businesses to law firms, to provide a full suite of digital marketing and mobile app development services. They regularly work to provide clients with strategically backed modern services including organic SEO, custom web application development, and marketing to deliver real results. As a Jacksonville-based mobile app development company, Split Reef can be contacted online or over the phone for a project quote.
