Today, many web designers take advantage of the increase in bandwidth to give their clients eye-popping designs. While artistic skill is extremely valuable in todays market, page load time is now a more important factor than ever.
Due to technically complex websites that use a multitude of database connections (which must make a connection each time a page is loaded) we keep using faster connection speeds to correct the issue. But it seems like that is not a solution.... it's just like sweeping the gunk under the rug. Your problem is still there and it's getting bigger as time goes by.
What has also been neglected is the fact that there are still millions of dial up users (an estimated 237 million to be exact) of whom some may be your customers. Don't alienate those users. If your page doesn't load quick enough, they're gone!!! Dial up users won't stay online to wait for something either... just like the rest of the surfers out there with the highest speed internet connections.
OLD RULE OF THUMB: 15 second load time on a 56k connection where possible. That is the maximum speed you should aim for.
Setting your load time checker in your web page editor can help to keep this target on task:
FRONTPAGE: tools/options/reports view. Set "assume connection speed of" to 56.6. The page load time will appear in the status bar on teh right hand side.
DREAMWEAVER: the load time also displays in the status bar. To set the connection speed, edit/preferences/status bar. Select 56.6 from the connection speed option.
DECREASE LOAD TIMES:
With a few clicks of a button, you can turn a 100kb file into a 20kb file without noticeable loss of quality.
-- Use thumbnails.
-- Get rid of animations; use a static image instead
-- Use a common image folder
(if you use the same image on multiple pages, keep the file name the same in the images folder. Don't rename the image for each page. The browser has to fetch it from the server instead of just reloading it from the cache.
-- Use tables wisely
(Browsers wait until all the items in a table are loaded before rendering the content. If everything is between your table tags the user sees nothing until all the items are loaded. If they're waiting too long the user might think something is wrong and go elsewhere).
(If you're using a table as your framework... break up tables into header, middle and footer to allow for quicker load times)
--Use CSS when applicable
(CSS formatting will help to keep download times quicker)
-- Scripts
(unless you really need the scripts, lose them. They take up load time.)
