Someone on one of the lists I subscribe to advised people to make sure their sites download quickly. She punched one of my hot buttons. I hate slow-loading sites. The whole world doesn’t have cable. Even if everyone did, slow sites hog resources.
Ever notice how some days, cable or not, the Internet is slower? For dial-up access, the rated speed for a modem may be 56.6 Kbps. That’s the top speed. The actual connection speed can be anywhere from 24.4 to 32 to 44 Kbps — just like rush hour on the freeway.
Be courteous; do your part to keep traffic moving.
You can compress your images a considerable amount without losing any detail. Below are links to the same image exported from Photoshop with different compression levels. Each link opens in a new window so you can compare them. (Assuming you wait for the entire image to download!) The original file — not linked below — is 309 KB.
See for yourself (links open in new windows)
- Uncompressed, 154 KB, 28 seconds at 56.6 Kbps
- Minimal compression, 119 KB, 22 seconds at 56.6 Kbps
- Moderate compression, 59 KB, 11 seconds at 56.6 Kbps
- Average compression, 27 KB, 6 seconds at 56.6 Kbps
- High compression, 18 KB, 4 seconds at 56.6 Kbps
