Beware of the Long Load Time Problem when You Buy a Website Essays

Buying a Website? Beware of the Long Load Time Problem Numerous studies have show that, while most web designers use fast internet connections, the majority of their audience still use comparatively slower connections. Because of this, many designers create web pages that may load quickly enough on their own computers, but take excessively long to load on their audiences' computers. Many web designers have not dealt with this issue on their websites, resulting in the loss of a valuable audience, even though numerous ways of dealing with the long load time problem exist. The largest cause of long page load times is the graphical content of the webpage. While text generally does not take too long to load over most connections, images can adversely affect even the fastest connection speeds when used incorrectly. Because websites use images more than almost any other media, this problem affects web designing decisions for practically every website created. Many web designers use large, full-quality graphics on their websites, which often take up much of the page. These images, while very attractive, do not justify the long time they require to load. In addition, many designers use full screen graphical interfaces for their sites. Even when text is the main component of these pages, the graphical interface slows the load time to a crawl. This forces viewers interested only in the text to wait unjustifiably long for the graphical interface to load first. For websites created for image viewing, there are often numerous, large, high-quality images placed on a single page in a giant column. Even if a viewer wants to observe just one of these images, they must wait for the other unwanted images to load as well. All of these problems caus... ...o a different page. Many thumbnails can be placed on a single page, and their small size and high compression do not lengthen load times significantly. A thumbnail also gives viewers a preview of what the larger, full-quality image will look like if they click on a thumbnail, allowing them to decide beforehand if it is worth their time. In summary, too many webpage designers are misusing images in ways that cause websites to load far too slowly. They should instead take advantage the many solutions available for solving this problem when designing and implementing their sites. By not doing so, designers frustrate viewers and lose a valuable audience. Utilizing techniques for decreasing webpage load time will help web designers to expand their audiences and viewers to enjoy websites more fully, proving beneficial to those on both sides of the long load time problem.