Forum Moderators: not2easy
I always like to build sites that load quickly for all users but i am struggling a little with this one due to 8 quality thumbnails, logo, big piciture and another pici all being required on the front page along with all design related images(mostly gifs < 1k).
Is 75k an acceptable file size or should i look to bring it down further. I have done as much as i can with the current content but have lost a little of the sharpness in the product thumbnails.
Am i going to lose some of the 56K crowd due to them sitting there waiting for things to load?
Cheers,
hughie
[edited by: Jon_King at 1:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 14, 2004]
As a general rule, a 56K modem downloads at 5 Kilobytes/second flat out. So 75KB will take around 15 seconds or more.
15 seconds is probably OK, as long as something on the page renders whilst the images are downloading. If there's a blank page for 15 seconds, then that's definitely *not* acceptable.
As (probably) around half your visitors are still on dial up, that translates to the rule of thumb of no more than 40KB for a home page.
Other pages can be larger. You just have to balance how interested they are likely to be (some for sure, as they clicked the link) versus how easily they lose interest.
If your images are all fully spec'd (specify height and width) then the text part of the pages will (in most browsers) appear correctly laid out and give them something to read while they are waiting.
If the reading material is engaging enough, they may wait for the whole page to appear.
But, if it is that engaging, why does it need the heavy overhead of the visuals?
The traditional guideline is not to leave people waiting for more than about 8 seconds on a home page.
I completely agree with this, but it doesn't directly translate to an pageweight maximum of 40K.
Provided the main (presumably textual) content loads within those 8 seconds, then having extra images loading afterwards isn't too much of an issue.
running a web-speed restrictor on my local machine first things appear after 4 seconds and the whole site minus thumbnails and one image is loaded after about 8. The whole thing is up after about 11/12 seconds.
It's a toss up between speed and image quality as i am loathed to pull anything out of there. I just dont want people to leave within the first 10 seconds.
I am using photoshop to compress images, is there a program that makes better quality compressed jpegs?
nice little Photoshop plugin that i think costs about $29 USD.
