25 seconds - average time spent on index pages

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How has the internet changed over the last decade? What do children think about Google, and how could Amazon improve its website? Author on web usability, Jakob Nielsen gives his views on the current state of the internet - and peers into its future.

More and more of us are becoming expert at using the web, according to Nielsen.

"People are more trigger happy," he says, neatly comparing quick-draw mouse clicking to the gunslingers of the old American West.

During 12 years of study Nielsen has seen many changes, notably the growth of web-users to number more than a billion people, and the emergence of the internet as a mainstream, almost ubiquitous presence in everyday life.

This increase has led, he says, to a "growing expertise" and "more rapid decision making". In one of his recent user studies, the savvier web users spent less than 25 seconds on a homepage, leaving websites little time to make an impression.

full story: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5030270.stm