According to the Chief Marketing Officer for Dairy Queen, one of the challenges the restaurant chain faces offline is that they’re turnaround is slow compared to that of competitors. This makes it a tough choice for people during lunch where time is tight.

However, it’s not just the stores that are slow (see screenshot of the slow loading Flash animation). Their website is too.

Below is feedback from 10 visitors to DairyQueen.com who seem to like the site overall but consistently complain that the site is much too slow – even on fact Internet connections.

What does this website do?

1. The website is about Dairy Queen. Where you can learn more about their menu items, featured items and find the closest Dairy Queen to you. You can also shop for Dairy Queen gift cards or buy a Dairy Queen inspired shirt. If you ever dreamed about owning a Dairy Queen, you can find out information about owning your own store.
2. Provides you with information about dairy queen.
3. It is a company based website for Dairy Queen. It was made to update you on everything related to DQ. You can use this website to find everything from menu items to updates on recalls.
4. The web site tells you about Dairy Queen, their products, etc.
5. Introduces you to the Dairy Queen product line and online games.
6. This website is a fun and interactive way to view what Dairy Queen has to offer you; whether that is hot eats and cool treats starting your own franchise.
7. This website allows you to explore various parts fo the Dairy Queen chain: looking at the menu, finding a location, play games, etc.
8. It promotes everything related to Dairy Queen from the food products to franchise opportunities, etc.
9. Based on the first few minutes spent on the web page, it seems to be the official website for promoting Dairy Queen products and company.
10. This is the official website of the Dairy Queen company, which operates the ice cream restaurant chain of the same name.

Great. It’s very clear what the website does.

What is the site’s best feature?

1. The best feature on the website is the blizzard fan club, a place where you can sign up to receive emails about the featured flavor of the month and to get some great coupon deals.
2. Ability to locate the closest location as well as be able to review the menu.
3. The fact that they had the link that let everyone know that they were not involved with the peanut butter recall was my favorite feature.
4. The pictures of the food.
5. The “Birds Eye View” feature is very cool.
6. The simple easy layout and fun interactive graphics are the best things on this page. Nothing is too complicated to find and the site is fun to navigate!
7. The interactive nature of the webstie makes it interesting to explore.
8. The nutrition calculator. I like when food places offer this on the menu. Having it online is the next best thing, I guess.
9. I think the best feature of this site is the nutritional calculator. This allows you to plan your meal ahead of time. Especially helpful for those following a diet plan.
10. The best current feature on the Dairy Queen site is the DQ Store Locator, which allows users to find a restaurant near them, and even print out a map and directions to it from wherever they are.

People love the information they find on the site.

What is 1-thing this site could do better?

1. One thing that could make this web page better would be for Dairy Queen to actually list their menu items and prices.
2. Something other than a black screen as it loads. It takes WAY too long to load.
3. I would put specials and coupons like a web-based only offer. That would get more people using you site!!!

4. The animation loads kind of slow on a 1MB DSL connection. Make this load faster.
5. When I load the page the lady talking seems to freeze and just doesn’t seem right. When I click on her to try to get her to talk again it’s like she isn’t even on the screen as I end up clicking on the hamburger flipping activity which is “behind” her.
6. I would like to hear a sound based description of what I’m hovering over.
7. Have pull down tabs at the top of the page where for the 4 categories at the top to see what they feature.
8. I would like to be able to turn the sound off if I don’t want to hear the music and sound effects while navigating.
9. Get rid of the very slow loading and seemingly pointless smiling mouth introduction.
10. I think that the pictures and animations could be better optimized because it takes ages for each page to load. I have a quite good connection (2Mbs) but it doesn’t help a lot.

Oh my. This is a problem. A slow loading website frustrates people, and takes away the eager anticipation they had of looking up the location of their nearest DQ. Hopefully, DQ’s customers are patient enough to put up with the delays. However, a better solution would be to solve the load time issue.