A lot can happen in 4 seconds. On the web, this seemingly insignificant time frame can make or break your customer experience. While every company has its own performance budget and user behavior can vary, we do know some clear tendencies based on studies conducted on live web environments.

Look where expectations and user behavior collide on a timeline of a typical page load:

Sources: KISSmetrics, Akamai, SOASTA

When the majority of users expect a page to load faster than the industry average, we know we have a problem. Meeting this 4-second threshold for a page load is one of the most important considerations for improving user experience and a key part of delivering an enlightened web experience.