Slashdot Mirror
Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003
Andy King writes "Within the last five years, the size of the average web page has more than tripled, and the number of external objects has nearly doubled. While broadband users have experienced somewhat faster response times, narrowband users have been left behind." The article breaks down a number of changes besides just page size, including image types and video duration.
Internet access gets faster -> Web sites get bigger ...
Hard drives get bigger -> Applications use more space
Media storage increases -> Home videos get larger and quality improves
CPUs get faster -> Windows programmers add "features" and chow down on cycles
Fish bowls get larger -> Goldfish grow
Some good, some bad, some ugly. But not shocking.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I wish more sites thought about narrowband users not because I myself am stuck with narrowband, but because I find that broadband-focused sites hide the pure content you want in a maze of gimmicks like Flash and needlessly dynamic HTML. Sure, in some areas (certain web applications), such features make the experience more efficient, but most of the time it is fluff.
Would it be better if we went back to having a high content/low content index page so the user could pick which one they wanted?
Of course not. People shouldn't be specifiying the width for their columns in absolute terms in the first place. Use relative measures and let the browser decide where everything goes. At least that way your site degrades gracefully if the browser doesn't meet your expectations.
Well written HTML + CSS should be completely device independent. It should be fully navigable on a 1600x1400 monitor, a 320x240 cell phone, or a line by line screen reader. And it should be completely transparent to the user. We have the technology, designers just need to use it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Ugh, I hate it when people describe dial-up as "narrowband" in an attempt to sound more technical. The term "broadband" is used to describe the signal encoding, not bandwidth. Therefore the converse of "broadband is "baseband," not narrowband. The opposite of narrowband is "wideband", and refers to something else. Um, k? Glad we have that all cleared up.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"