I have a question....

I have heard the question before, what is better a site with professional graphics and multimedia or a site that downloads quicker. Now I know there are a lot more variables associated with this question, (i.e. sites purpose, sites audience.... ect.) but outside of those variables, what is the general concensus regarding this issue.

I have heard before that a site that has graphics can take too long to download for the dial-up user. Some have even gone as far to say that it is even doing a disservice to the people that don't have access to newer technology.

I have thought about this arguement, and I tried to examine this from the opposite side. If I purchase broadband, am I not being robbed from my total experience if someone makes a site that is completely limited to text only?

As a webmaster, I have thought about having different versions of the site available on my index page. The only problem is that this can be crazy.... text only... text and graphics with no java... java enabled with no flash... full flash enabled.... and compound this by making versions for IE or netscape.... I just want a simple answer.

Personally I pay for broadband, I want to see nice looking well defined web sites. When I had dial-up I would get mad when sites would take forever to load. These being opposite agenda's it makes me truly wonder if there is a solid answer to this problem.

Tell me your point of view...

Thanks

As a designer, I would go for a quick load site over a graphic intensive site since at last check, the majority of people still use dialup.

As a broadband user, I still feel the same. I'm not a big advocate of a lot of graphics because many of them are meaningless and don't add to the overall appeal of a website. If a site's a quick load on dialup and broadband and is primarily or entirely text-based, it just means I have more bandwidth to play with by opening up 3, 4, 5, 6, sometimes 7 browser windows.

Just my .02 American.

Graphics vs. Download time

I choose download time. Unless you are a designer needing to show off your work (which should be done mostly in your portfolio anyway), then slow loading graphics are pretty useless.

What is important is to determine why and for whom your website is for ? if it is for you to demostrate your skills in Flash and all the multimedia stuffs then yes go for the broadband stuffs. But if it is for your audience, it would depend on what they prefer. Yes, it would definitely be refreshing to have all the fancy bells and whistles and in web sites with certain themes, they would come up better than pure HTML pages but might not work for some others. Use the method which provide the best delivery.

For instance, if you are running a web host, a simple and easy to navigate page showing the rates and features that you are providing would be better than one which is heavily laden with flash intros and rollovers and all the video clips of you selling your plans. You want to be able to hit the client with what you are selling right away and also having a fast loading page would instill that sense of confidence that you have a fast network. If your flash takes 2 minutes to load, it will definitely give the impression that your server is slow. They may not know it is because of the huge multimedia resource which would hit them.

If you are promoting a MTV class artiste then maybe some flash would be nice. In this case, you would be targeting the young and trendy and probably those internet savvy audience with broadband.

But in all fairness, if you are providing rich multimedia contents, to provide for an alternative text/non multimedia content for those internet-speed challenged majority out there.

But I would go for substance than presentation anytime.

When I first started developing on the Internet... mmm.. 6-7 years ago, I was a proponent of the lowest denominator concept, where the site should work with all browsers, and at least a certain version, doesn't use proprietary technology and such.

However times has change. While the download times is still a concern due to the fact that many are still on dialup in the states, I had now adopted more of a majority concept, due to the following reasons:

- IE is now the predominant browser with 90% market share
- Flash does come with IE installs

Based on that, I now try to build more for IE browsers. While I tend to avoid incompatible tags, if it is inevitable, and forced to make a choice, I would use it if it works for IE. (Luckily I don't have to do that yet). I still ensure it works on Netscape. But that's basically about it.

This obviously isn't the approach that everyone will use (as the lowest denominator rule is still being applied elsewhere) But that's how I see things will change to in the future.

Always go for the quicker download except in isolated and well defined areas of the website where a lengthy download is warranted. Never use 100% flash enabled sites. They can not be indexed by search engines and/or indexed properly. Not to mention the fact that millions of people do not have flash installed on their computer, the latest and/or appropiate version, or the capability to install the same.

As a designer I sometimes make textbased sites, with the use of tables you can still create good stuff, maybe round of some corners with small images...

I chose the lowest denominator in designing my sites. The purpose of my sites are to promote our applications and as such download speeds and information are more information issues as compared to the design.

I did not use any fanciful coding and everything is just vanilla plain HTML with some CSS to top it up.

So far no one complained and the only ones which says my design sucks are the ones who wants to market their services to redesign the sites. I do change the design every ones in a while just more like what you do with a new coat of paint.

I personnally find that you can come to a well balanced mix. Although for guidelines I would always go for the quicker download option. I remember the days of slow internet, and my frustration at waiting for a page to load. :(

I agree, you should have a balanced mix of both,
I use broadband and i like to see graphics on sites but i also use 128k, which is even faster than dialup but still very slow for sites with too many graphics.

If you find the right balance for loading time on dialup and good looking with nice graphics, you cant go wrong :)

Hope this helps anyway,
John

The best site designs in my opinion are the ones that intigrate images with colored table cells well. Like if you have one smaller image that is red around a table cell that is red it makes it look like a huge image but it loads alot faster. There are some sites that do this very well with minimal amount of graphics and it looks like a page of just full graphics.

Nice Graphics - Good Coding - Good Colors = Best Resulsts all around.