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Created: Nov 18, 2008
Updated: Nov 17, 2009
Membership: Open
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Implemented: Reduce/Eliminate pictures on Home Page +3
Implemented:
We've dramatically overhauled the homepage and reduced the number of images on the homepage. The total download size for the homepage has dropped dramatically, and this should be much more friendly for users on low-bandwidth connections.
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Problem:
Users on a dial up connection may wait to long for homepage to load
How fast does the WiserEarth Home Page load on a dial-up connection?
Suggestion:
With all the pictures on the home page its 100-200 KB (though this can be reduced through picture optimization, converting pictures to GIF).
But with a 56Kb dialup connection, you have about a 7 KB/s (download rate (8 KB = 1 Kb.) Many users get even less than 7 KB. Am I getting this right? I definitely remember very slow access on dialup connections.
While many US users and nonprofits have more than a dial-up connection, this is not true for everyone, and especially not international users!
- Reduce or eliminate the pictures on the Home Page!!!
Simplicity is part of the secret to Google's (and other websites like Craigslist) success:
Google vs Yahoo's Home Page over the years
It'd be interesting to compile some of these stats
Here’s the breakdown of various countries and their dialup access users as of December 2006:
Germany - 10%
South Korea - 4%
China - 15%
USA - 19%
Canada - 16%
France - 25%
UK - 15%
Brazil - 43%
India - 46%
Mexico - 44%
Russia - 52%
Countries in Africa - ??
Statistics for China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia were urban samples only.
World Broadband Stats ( by country),
Comments (1 - 4 of 4)
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Faster access for slow connection is indeed needed
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agree
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On a similar line of thinking, it's important to think about where else we can cut back on other parts of the site.
I'd like to see statistics for how long it takes a 56K dial-up user to load up various parts of the site. With more and more additions, I'm starting to get a little worried. Sometimes less is more. |
Converting to gifs does have a caveat, though - gifs are great for shapes and colors and text, but not so good for pictures and images. Jpgs usually compress better and retain more detail in those cases. But for images as small as the ones on the homepage, the detail isn't usually noticeable, so it may be a great trade-off to allow our users to download the homepage faster.