Efficiency and Web Page Design :: Internet Cyberspace Essays

Efficiency and Web Page Design One of the biggest challenges for web designers today is trying to have a ‘killer app’, yet make it efficient enough for the common surfer. We’re talking about file size. Zona Research (June 1999) reported that 70% of online users were only connected at 56K or less. Granted this number may have decreased a bit in the last 16 months, but the fact is, most people have a slow connection. As a surfer browses through the numerous sites on the web, they want to see the information the site has to offer. Some studies indicate that if you page takes longer than eight seconds for something to start appearing, you will probably lose your visitors. You need to be able to deliver your pages and information in a neat yet efficient manner. There are several factors that cause your visitors to have slow downloads. One might be the network or connection speed they have. They may also have poor performing hardware. Not much you can do about these. Maybe it is your server, it could be upgraded; but more than likely it has to do with your files. The size of the files can be caused by large images, or it may just have inefficient code. In order to decrease the download time we will first look at the code and find ways to make the files more ‘lean’; we want to ‘trim the fat’ and get them in the best condition possible. Next we will look at graphics and ways we can optimize them for maximum performance and minimal download time. Finally there are numerous other hints and tricks that can be added to your code to make them download in record times. Making ‘mean’ and ‘lean’ code Every character and space that appears in your code takes up file size The following suggestions can help you to trim up your files and cut second off your site downloads. Make your file names and directory names simple and short. This may sound trivial, but every little bit counts. For example: or Use relative addressing instead of absolute addressing.