This is an interesting read; to us, the 'changes' discussed in this article are obvious, and the kind of things we think about constantly when working on clients websites. But one point really stood out; Jakob Nielson's observation that the '8 second rule' should now be reduced to sub-1 second. Wow, that's fast!
For those not familiar with the 'rule', it boils down to the human perception of speed, and how long people will wait before becoming bored or frustrated. Visitors to a website will expect to see something that not only grabs their attention, but subconsciously confirms they are 'on the right page', within (previously) 8 seconds, and now less than 1 second (simply because technology allows that now). Any longer than that, and there's a risk that the visitor will become bored waiting, and click 'back' (typically to a search engine results page).
For us, that means building sites that 'look right' immediately; auxiliary images and other bits of the page can continue to load in the background, but the essentials must load quickly, if you're to grab the visitors attention. Think about how often you've consciously given up on a site loading (after many more seconds), and then think about how often your subconscious has probably stepped in first...
