HUGE Graphics, Lots of Graphics, More Graphics

[SyrenSong]

Okay. Everyone likes a pretty page. And good-looking graphics are always a plus.

But what about sites that just go graphics crazy? I mean, 800x600 pixel images resized to "thumbnails" only 80x60, using only html coding to resize the image? The image is still 200k+, and takes forever to download!!

Then there's the "more the merrier" theory. In other words, the belief that lots and lots of graphics on a webpage, will encourage more and more folks to visit my site! So people put 50 small graphics on every single webpage on their site. The total size of each image is only 5k, so the logic is that this won't be a problem for downloading. Of course, 50 images at 5k each is a total of 250k! That'lltake forever to download, especially for folks using dialup connections!

Another theory is that breaking a single really big graphic into lots of little tiny pieces will make the site load faster. Ever notice that those 20 individual 10k images come up in random order on the screen. Oh yeah - did I mention the total size of all the little images together is over 200k? I see lots of dialup visitors leaving before the first 5 images are visible.....

Okay. Rant over. Thank you for your patience.
S

[wenwilder]

And how many of those images are related to what the site is actually about? Unless it's one of those sites that has no purpose, those seem rampant some days.

Then there's always the sites that you know are going to have a lot of images (I do alot of searching for GOOD tornado and dilapidated barn images), and you discover to your chagrin that out of fifty images there are only ten different ones repeated 5 times each. OR not one single image is related to what you searched for! I have yet to see a tornado that looks like a rose or a rose that looks like a tornado. But I have found pictures of tornado's named rose and vice versus.

A ROSE is a ROSE! lol

[Moondancer]

Yall're gonna make me feel bad.. I'm putting up a 62 or 63 page site (lost count) that has a bunch of graphics on it, rofl.. but the pages that have them are the free stuff pages... graphics I'll never use except some of the textures for 3d chats and stuff.. I'm sorry they will be slow loading but i stretched them out as much as I could, :-(... the main pages aren't graphic heavy tho.. if that makes ya feel better.

[vilesilencer]

A few of my friends and I have image-rich personal pages. Yup they take a while to load. My current personal site has a large banner, which I have forced to be a background image through CSS, so that it works at both 800 * 600 and 1024 * 768 with no scroll bar across the bottom. However, this brilliant method also means that banner loads last, not something I would recommend on a client/business site.

Since my personal site is exactly that, and not related to my business in anyway, if people don't like the loading and leave I couldn't give a stuff. Those that remain are rewarded :)

In so far as a business site goes, I think along the lines of grabbing peoples attention straight away, if they have to sit there waiting, then you've lost a customer. I try and keep banners simple and the first image to load.

too many graphics = too long to load = no customers.

[Sualdam]

Originally Posted by vilesilencer

My current personal site has a large banner, which I have forced to be a background image

Your pictures of KFC and your desktop are 85kb and 70kb respectively - there's a full 30-seconds plus on a dialup :)

300x200 images could easily be less than 20kb with no noticeable loss of quality.

What I don't understand is this 'personal-site-so-the-load-time-doesn't-matter' business. Why?

At the very least it is bad practice. Why shouldn't a personal site be written well?

[vilesilencer]

Because my personal page isnt a design show off. Its designed for me. I couldn't care less how long it takes to load. Its not a business site, it makes me no money, and if you dont like it, I couldnt care less.

I know that most designers would kill to be able to design something similar and thats all that really matters.

Your point about image sizes, yes i can shrink them into .gifs and they would load a billion times faster. who cares? I could also have a small boring logo and not bother about how it resizes on diff resos. and it would load even faster. Ive taken part in the 5k competition before Sualdam, I choose not to do that. If you were critiquing a business site of mine, I'd consider your advice gold, but since it is for my personal pleasure, Its not wanted :)

I didn't ask for a critique of my page. The site is written very well thanks. The number of unique visitors and positive feedback alone reinforces that for me :)

So while we are offering positive feedback, i visited the www u have attached to your profile, and considering it took over 30 seconds to load for a very bare site, including a BIG "Loading 15% done etc etc etc" I'd consider you need to work on your site before telling others what to do with theirs.

just a thought :)

[Sualdam]

Calm down. I don't want a fight.

I'm not critiquing your page. You drew attention to it by mentioning your logo, so I went for a look. I was there only a few seconds, and apart from a neat layout, 'critiquing' it was not on my mind. I was simply making a point about two photos you have which I right clicked along with looking at the logo - as you had mentioned.

From what you have said in other forums to help others I don't for one second doubt that you know how to fix them - I just assumed you'd forgotten. It is easily done.

Incidentally, if you switched to GIFs they probably wouldn't be smaller. GIFs are not good for photos.

All I am asking is - given the topic of this thread - what is the point of teaching and advocating one thing, but doing exactly the opposite? It would be like being a driving instructor and yet insisting on breaking all the road rules whenever you (that's a general 'you' - not you personally) drove privately. Simply because you (see above) wanted to.

I had an email from someone yesterday asking for help (not from this forum I should add). They have a personal site with 8 photos on one page. Each photo is between 150kb and 290kb. Straight from the camera.

I'm definitely NOT going to not mention it when I speak to them later ;)

[vilesilencer]

Whos fighting?

I haven't forgotten the size of the images. I put them there and specified the heights and widths. Surely that's a dead giveaway that I know how big they are.

The whole point I was making which you seem to have missed is that my site is a personal page for ME. It ISN'T a "Look at this page it does everything perfectly, the site loads quick, the tags are all perfect, it works in all browsers, etc etc" style site, never has been never will be, though I do maintain that it is cross-browser compatible at multiple resolution.

Switching to .GIF actually does reduce the size significantly. However, I think what you meant to say was that the image degrades because GIFs are not good for photos

All I am asking is - given the topic of this thread - what is the point of teaching and advocating one thing, but doing exactly the opposite? It would be like being a driving instructor and yet insisting on breaking all the road rules whenever you (that's a general 'you' - not you personally) drove privately. Simply because you (see above) wanted to.

I'll answer this by quoting myself

"However, this brilliant method also means that banner loads last, not something I would recommend on a client/business site.

In so far as a business site goes, I think along the lines of grabbing peoples attention straight away, if they have to sit there waiting, then you've lost a customer. I try and keep banners simple and the first image to load.

too many graphics = too long to load = no customers."

says it all. I distance my page from a page that should be used for business. The helpful tip there is don't do whats done on my personal site.

BTW i'm not here to teach or advocate. I offer an opinion. Some people like image-rich sites, others don't. Its a personal preference.

Just because one person is going to leave because an image takes a long time to load doesn't mean all people will.

There are certain sites I visit that take time to load, but they are brilliant sites, and I'm happy to wait. Here's one such one that I think you would agree, you wouldn't care if it took 30 seconds to load an image you would still be on that page.


http://etherfarm.com/

[Sualdam]

Well, the nice thing about this business is that you can do what you want, as you said ;)

I just think that having redundant quality present when it doesn't need to be there doesn't have a logical argument in favour of it.

Like I say, I only commented on it because you'd mentioned the big logo issue. I wouldn't have looked otherwise. It occurred to me that the big logo thing could simply be offset by dumping some of that unncessary overhead.

And your site DOES look nice!

[ldyguique]

This is an annectdotal digression on "photos."

On Jan 6th, I took a call from someone with a free personal webspace (which we don't tech in WH); however, since they only receive support through offshore outsourced email, I usually try to zero in and see if it's a minor fix or configuration that I can give before sending them on their way.

In this particular case, a very agitated man was concerned because he'd used up all of his bandwidth on his personal website already, had generated a 2nd email address with 10mb more space and a new bandwidth allocation and then had tied the two sites together. He couldn't understand how "just some pictures of his house and yard" were using up all of this bandwidth.

I took a look. Ummmm, errrrm, the first two photos were NOT of house and garden. All of his photos were on a single page and he didn't realize that if one went to the site to view one thing, ALL downloaded. I explained that "in my experience, nude photos of gay men tend to attract a certain amount of interest" and that if he didn't want to keep repeating the error, he should divide his site up into several pages. And, that if he expected his mother and "non-interested" friends to visit his website to view his house and garden, that, perhaps, he shouldn't have his first photos being of him in his altogether. (I knew that he was gay due to his choices for mailbox names.)

[vilesilencer]

Hahahaha sounds like an interesting scenario. Yes I imagine his birthday suit attracted a tonne of attention hehehe...

I agree with the bandwidth slaughter of a tonne of pics on one page. I've always said my first website resembled the one Homer Simpson made, with the dancing jesus on it... Tonnes of useless moving pictures and zero content. It chewed the bandwidth right up, lucky it was a free account hehehe.

[ldyguique]

Syren --

I found an excellent article on both "this" topic and the one raging in Internet about designing for highspeed versus dialup connections. The article, Web Template Designs: FAT vs. PHAT, deals cogently with a) dialup connections; and, b) graphic-laden or intensive sites. The entire article is well worth a read; however, I'll content myself with posting a quote:

Recently I visited one of the FAT web template designer's site from a client's home to prove to her that PHAT in their designs meant FAT. Her dialup (believe it or not) connected at 14K (14,000 bps) on a 56K modem. She would like to personally thank Verizon for all their help over the last two years. After approximately 15 phone line repair calls to them they were actually able to raise her 10K connection to 14K and she only gets disconnected an average of three times during the evening when she's online! Verizon is required by law to provide a minimum of 14K even though they charge her the full-price as they would someone with a newer phone line or who is located closer to their office mainframe who gets a 52K connection. Hmmm ... {scratching my head}.

Approximately 10 seconds after arriving at the FAT web template designer's site, the first thing we noticed was a message in the status bar that read ... "92 items remaining". Argh! This meant that 92 *more* graphics needed to load before we could view the page. I thought I was going to have to find the smelling salts as poor Janet (my client) nearly fainted at the thought and was instantly non-impressed even though the designer's site was colorful and pleasing to the eye 96 seconds later when it finished loading. After the site completely loaded, Janet noticed immediately that the web templates they were selling seemed to more graphic intensive then their site.

This may also be a good selling point for many of you who do original work -- and are competing against purchased templates.

[xsurveys]

As far as graphics attracting visitors to a site - I don't know about all that. To some people, a pretty site is more appealing , but I think the web user is more interested in content. You gotta have more than a cool layout. I think web surfers have the memories of goldfish - every 10 seconds they discover something new.

I don't think 200 K of graphics is a wise idea unless of course the graphics are the purpose of the site :) I say that only because my site provides graphics, renderd images, etc - so it follows that the pages are all kinds big -- sometimes with 5 - 6 400 pixels X 150 pixels jpeg images.

I think we should treat layout like just one aspect of the site. But we should make sure there's some content underneath all the glamour - or I think the surfers will probably surf elsewhere.