TL;DR
From a usability perspective, the following speed tests provide the most clarity about the purpose of the web page: Meter.net, Broadband Speed Checker, Internet Speed at a Glance, LibreSpeed and Open Speed Test.
Contents
Introduction
An important usability aspect of any web page is that it is clear to new visitors what the purpose of the web page you are on is.
In Orbit Media Studio's excellent article Web Design Standards vs. Website Best Practices: Our Review of 500 Sites they point out that many websites do not make it clear what the web page is about.
They state that the usability of a web page can often be improved by the correct use of titles, navigation labels, headers, calls to action and supportive evidence.
Method of measurement
For this test we visit the homepage of the speed test in Brave (a secure web browser which offers you a clean speed test without ads or cookiebanners) and investigate if there are correctly used titles, navigation labels, headers, calls to action and supportive evidence.
We score each speed test by counting the correctly (descriptive) used titles, navigation labels, headers, calls to action and supportive evidence.
The main goal is find out what this site is about. If words like speed, download, bandwidth, test, meter and so on are highlighted then we consider this as a plus. A displayed meter is also a plus.
Speed tests to test
Because this is a relative simple test, the unique speed tests as collected at ZOMDir will be tested.
The measurements
- Astound speedtest has 1 clue that this is an internet speed test
- Bandwidth Place has 2 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Bredbandskollen has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Broadband Speed Checker has 4 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Cloudflare has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Comparitech has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- DSLReports has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Fast has 2 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Fireprobe has 2 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Google Fiber has 2 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Internet Speed at a Glance has 4 clues that this is an internet speed test
- LibreSpeed has 4 clues that this is an internet speed test
- M-Lab has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Meter.net has 5 clues that this is an internet speed test
- N Perf has 2 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Ookla Speedtest has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Open Speed Test has 4 clues that this is an internet speed test
- SamKnows has 2 clues that this is an internet speed test
- SpeedCheck has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- SpeedOf.me has 1 clue that this is an internet speed test (The call to action button seems a button to test if your internet connection is secure)
- SpeedOf.me API Sample Page has 0 clues that this is an internet speed test (the call to action makes not clear what you test)
- SpeedSmart has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Speedtest4.PHP has 1 clue that this is an internet speed test
- TestMy.net has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Toast has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Which Broadband Speed Test has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
- Xfinity xFi Speed Test has 3 clues that this is an internet speed test
Conclusions
The number of clues varies from 0 to 5. The median is 3 clues.
There is/are:
- 1 speed test with 0 clues (SpeedOf.me API Sample Page)
- 3 speed tests with 1 clue
- 6 speed tests with 2 clues
- 12 speed tests with 3 clues
- 4 speed tests with 4 clues
- 1 speed test with 5 clues (meter.net)
Unsurprisingly, the SpeedOf.me API sample page contains no clues.
From a usability perspective, the following speed tests provide the most clarity about the purpose of the web page: