Re: Page load times

>What would an average acceptable page load time be for 56k dial-up? I start
>to get impatient around 30 seconds.  I am trying to keep load times down but
>still get enough images to keep things interesting.

There is a widely quoted "8-second rule." But it's more complicated than that.

If your pages are constructed right, some content will appear 
immediately and graphics will fill in. This is a good way to reduce 
the problem.

My rule of thumb is 40K max for a home page (and 20K is better). 
That's 13 seconds. (Divide K by 3. This assumes a 33K speed which is 
what 56K modems usually achieve in real life).

The other factors to consider are:

- How motivated is the viewer? If you are the only site on the web 
that features information an the Coriensiposics moth, then those 
interested in Coriensiposics will wait a very, very long time, with 
great eagerness. But for most sites, you are dealing with a viewer 
whose finger is on the mouse button, twitching. For pages that are 
deeper in the site, you can get away with larger sizes since by then, 
people are hooked and getting some real information they want.

- What are you presenting that costs those extra K? Way too often, I 
see massive pages that achieve no special goal. Adobe's home page is 
130K! What are they thinking?

Work very hard on compression, very hard on keeping content simple 
and clean. Think the way you would designing a billboard or magazine 
cover. You only have the viewer for a few seconds and your goal is to 
get him or her to click.

I have seen very, very few home pages that really need to be any 
bigger than 40K to accomplish their real marketing and communications 
goals.

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