Organizations and businessess first began to conduct general surveys a year after the introduction of NCSA's Mosaic. One of the largest, oldest and widely regarded surveyors, the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center's World Wide Web User Surveys began its work on January 1994 (GVU Surveys). These Center was one of the first organizations to demontrate the Web as a powerful surveying medium. Surveys were done using forms; after the first survey, adaptive questioning was used. Since its inception, it has taken a total of five surveys. The sixth survey is currently being conducted. From these surveys, it can be observed that the characteristics of the web populations have changed.
The first survey featured the characteristics of the early web adopters; the users were mostly male (94%), relatively young (56% between 21 and 30), and living in North America (69%). They were mostly professionals (45%) or graduate students (22%), and had over ten years of programming experience (77%). These users had high income, with an average of $69,000 per year. These were the early technology adopters who were eager to learn new tools and held careers in the computer industry. The fact that 88% of the surveyed users used UNIX as their platform is another good indication that these were users who were involved in a computer-related industry or in an education environment. These early users were heavy web users too; 97% of them used the browser at least a few times a week.
The continuing surveys indicate that the web population has gradually become closer to the norm; the female web population ratio has gradually increased to 31.5%, the average annual income has decreased to $59,000 per household, and the users in other occupations, such as management, have gained a greater share. These trends indicate that the Web is gradually becoming more accessible to everyone. The table below shows the gradual adoption of the Web by groups who were not "technology developers/pioneers".
Surveys | 1st Survey (Jan 94) | 3rd Survey (April 95) | 5th Survey (April 96) |
---|---|---|---|
Age | 56% between 21 and 20 | 30% between 21 and 30 | Average=33.0 |
Gender | 94% male | 82% male | 68.5% male |
Average Income | N/A | $69,000 | $59,000 |
Main Profession | N/A | Computer-related 31.4% | Education-related 29.6% |
% in the U.S. | 69% in North America | 80.6% in U.S. | 73.4% in U.S. |
A prime factor in the popularity of the Web today could be its ease of use and installation; today's improved web browsers such as Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer do not require any technical knowledge for installation or for usage. Even children at the elementary level can point and click to "go places" on the Web. The main barrier to Web usage today is getting access to the Internet. Most users today access the Internet through home (55.4%) or work (34.3%). Those who do not have a computer at home or at work are left out from the information superhighway. Today, even that barrier is whittling away, as coffeeshops, software vendors and other shops in large cities are starting to provide fee-based access to the Internet. Other less expensive alternative ways to access the Web, such as set-top boxes, smart phones, palmtops and PDAs, are now being offered by companies in the communications industry.
For the moment at least, a telephone survey by Yankelovich Partners Inc. finds the biggest obstacle to going online for those without a PC are the cost of a computer and the perceived complexity of surfing the Internet. For those who do have PCs, only 10 percent use commercial on-line services, and another three quarters are seeking ISPs with a set rate for unlimited usage (Seminerio, 96).
Users were also surveyed on their opinions on web-related issues. An important topic that users felt strongly about was privacy. Anonymity was valued very highly among the respondents, and the complete authority to control demographic information came a close second. Most users, however, would most agree to part with personal information if "a statement regarding how the information would be used" or a statement regarding "what information was being collected" was provided. Note, however, that more than a quarter of users have provided false information! (GVU Surveys).
What do users do on the Web? A frequent activity is using the Web for references. 96.7% of those surveyed have used the Web for references. Another popular activity is looking up product or services information (92.4%). 74.4% of the users look up the weather on the Web, and only 53.6% of the users have actually purchased through the Web at least once. Other interesting user characteristics are:
With a majority of the respondents coming from either the U.S. (70%) or Europe (21%), one might think that the demographics may be biased towards users in the the two regions. However, studies on non U.S. users profiles by geographic region show otherwise (Granered 96). It was found that overall, the demographics of web users were very similar throughout every continent.
Another interesting segment of users are those in the over-50 age group. From the GVU surveys, there is a distinct difference in their behaviour on the Web. They are more likely to access the Web from home (73%), and pay for their own access (81%). These users are more likely to use the online services (57%) than the average user (48.4%). They are also more likely to access economic/financial and government information on the Web than any of the other age groups. Users in this age group are also more likely to have shopped online than any of the other age groups (61.0% versus the average of 55.6%).
Other methods of classifying web users are through education level, gender, income, frequency of use, and purpose of using the Web.
Copyright © 1996 Mei See Yeoh, All Rights Reserved
Mei See Yeoh <myeoh@vt.edu>
Last modified: Sat Oct 26 13:15:51 1996