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There are more than a few things to consider... but are you primarily focused on broadband users, or are you also trying to factor in dial-up?

If you have a lot of images you could possibly use interlaced GIFs for the larger images (which would cause them to load in stages). And you could munch down the JPGs in Photoshop to speed things up.

We have a site we are developing and the landing pages are about 35 seconds on dial-up, 1 second on T1/Broadband. But I figure if you cant afford anything more than dial up, you probably wont be able to afford the products any way.

To build out the theme we had to use extensive coloring and GIFs to get the effect we were looking for, so it is, what it is.  But the best way to decide is to put yourself in the customers shoes, would you find it to be acceptable if you were the customer?

And while they do a pretty good job, its possible that spider crawling may take longer.

But what size in KB would you guys say is optimum and maximum?

G'day korat.

But what size in KB would you guys say is optimum and maximum?

I've had a look at your site and I reckon it's pretty good as is. I'm on low speed broadband and it was not long loading from scratch.

If you wish to allow for a person on a 56k modum, add up the total file size of the page and work it out from there. A 56k modem might download at about 50kbs, depending on the line.

When I opened your pages from scratch, it was no time at all till I could see clear, attractive text and the beginnings of colourful photos opening in the head. I like the way you have the photos tiled. The first of the image comes in from the left at a rate that excites me to see more, rather than sending me away with boredom.

I work on the seven seconds rule, rather like your rule. I think it's important to have enough to assure the visitor, within about three seconds, that something great is opening. I believe you've got it. It sure did it for me, anyway.

Although your header images are large, they say so much about your page and are so much a part of the information given in graphics and text. They are indispensable.

Regards,
Laurie.

korat wrote:

Thanks guys that makes sense.

Do any of you think that the size of pages could be bigger as people go deeper into the site as they are interested?

It is realy about usability in what works best. Obviously pages in my porfolio (graphics) are going to be larger but that doesn't affect navigation structures. What matters is the ease of use for the end user. I wouldn't make pages LOOOONNNNGGGG scrollin ones cause that tends to frustrate surfers. So the decision to break one page into three pages would be for the en user experience NOT because of the page size (in KB).

If it makes sense to have graphics on a page for a better end user experience then do it... if it doesn't than don't.
If a page is loading slowly... etc....

Those are the kind of reasons for considering page size IMO

Last edited by TheGypsy (2008-01-09 08:58:37)