Keep Graphics Light To Speed Downloads
If you've been on the Web more than a few minutes, you already know the importance of file size!
File size is one major reason people call the Web the "World Wide Wait." Studies show that the number one complaint about the Web is not badly designed pages (we're her to help you fix that problem), not lack of animation (although some still use it without rhyme or reason) - but slowly loading pages! Visitors to your site want fast information and that means keeping the file sizes as low as possible.
Here are a few of the guidelines we use:
- Try to limit each page to 50 Kilobytes (including navigation, text, and all the graphics).
- Use images that are as small as possible and use a web-safe color palette.
- Make all GIF and JPGs the right way
- Try to keep video clips to 15-30 seconds, unless you make it streaming video. Even then it should greatly enhance the content or demo your products to be worthwhile. Never put something on your pages "Just 'cause I can!"
- Utilize width, height, and alt tags on all images. This lets the browser load all of the text while graphics are still downloading.
- Optimize any PDF files for "byteserving" so users can read the first pages of a big document while the rest is downloading behind the scenes.
The dragon graphic on this page, for example, consumes only 4.8K and would take a 33.6K modem only about 2 seconds to download and display. The page total is 42K which is adequate, but the other images have already been loaded on other pages and are being read from the users cache thus speeding things up.
Always remember that on the World Wide Web, your competition is only a click away. If your pages don't load quickly, there are plenty of others for your potential customers to choose from!
