Web Design Tips

Are you loosing customers because your website is too slow? Follow some practical tips and tricks for quick downloading -- one of the most important elements of an effective website.

Internet Connection

First of all bear in mind that everyone doesn't have a T1, cable modem or ISDN connection to the Internet. Even in many fastest developing countries, there is still a large mass of surfers with modems less than 56kps. So, remembering this, the site should be developed without evading even the least thing designing the site to the lowest common denominator of 28.8kps modem. Often 20 seconds is quoted as tolerable time for a page download. More considerably 10 seconds is a maximum time for the homepage download.

Minimize Multimedia Use

Let your front page accommodate every form of multimedia and other media except for images. As far as possible, minimize placing of images on the front page. Certainly a background song can be pleasant. But consider sound files, especially a .wave file since they guzzle a great deal for loading. It is positively advisable to avoid videos unless they become definite as videos shrink quick loading. Even if you are necessitated to embed a video, it is better to use 30-40kb file, otherwise, it may probably tempt a surfer to hit stop or back button. Better minimize all graphics use.

Place Small Images

The next great deal is about your images. Quiet often, when images are larger, say for example, 600 pix x 600 pix, it takes much time for the loading of the image. So, as far as the images are concerned, make them to the effect of your need by giving the images smaller dimensions such as resize. Also compress the image using special services on the web, which can be helpful to reduce the file size, but don't forget to pick up images that look good once they are compressed. When possible it is best to use drawings rather than photos. Photographs take a larger color palettes and less compression.

Take Surfer to Other Pages

After you have done with the compressing of the images, let you take your image surfer from front page to other pages for images. The image loaded on the front page will be in the browser's cache and will load straight away when it is requested on your other pages.

Define Image Tags

Define the width and height in all of your image tags, which will help the surfer to know the space, the image takes on the page and will not have to adjust everything once the image starts loading. With this a little time is saved and helps the page from jumping when an image loads.

Set Size and Text of Front Page

Be sure that you design the front pages as short as possible since a longer page, even if it is all text, can take a long time to load. Any additional information may be placed on another page using a link. In fact, this will help the surfers to keep on viewing. You will also save a little extra time and your front page may look neat and tidy.

Flash & Animation

Avoid using flash and animated banners or gifs, and if required, minimize the number of frames and their size. Frames need at least 3 files to be load and are slow on the homepage.

Java Applets & JavaScripts

Avoid using java applets or other scripts especially on the front page. If you are, however, required to place Applets and Javascripts, popular, pre-designed Applets and Javascripts come in many sizes. Choose those in their category, which offer the fastest loading speeds.

Handle Nested Tables

In fact, tables control the appearance of your website. But when it is not handled with care by removing nested tables, your website faces slow download and eventually visitors coax to dwindle surfing even if the nested tables enchant your front page.

Break Up Tables

Remember that large tables can slow downloading. So, it is best to break large table into smaller ones whenever possible. Also determine the height and width of each table. It is also recommended to specify the size of each table in html code, which will help load quicker.

Delete Unwanted Stuff

Evaluate your website's stuff and delete unnecessary substance. Every element, text, or image should be worth its download. Attract your visitors with quick download of your homepage, which can be best attained by crossing out the unwanted messages.

Keep Your HTML Concise

I find that as I work with Web pages -- revising and updating constantly -- the HTML code becomes cluttered with empty, redundant, and nested font tags.
Most HTML editors offer an option to clean up your HTML by eliminating empty, redundant, and nested tags (in Dreamweaver, go to the "Commands" menu, and then "Clean up HTML"). This not only cleans up your code for appearance purposes, but makes your pageloads quicker, as there is less code to process.

Screen Resolutions

There are three major screen resolutions: 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768.
Check your website at all three resolutions. Don't just design for one resolution assuming that if your monitor is set at that resolution then everyone else's is, too. There are still a lot of people surfing at a 640x480 screen resolution, some by choice and others because they do not know how to change the resolution. Please remember that 640x480 is the default screen resolution in most monitors. If your website is designed for a larger screen resolution only, then a horizontal scroll bar will appear for lower resolutions. A lot of people leave at the site of a horizontal scroll bar.

Frames

Why frames don't work? Firstly they increase load time as two pages are being loaded instantly which can be a problem for those with slow connections. Secondly frames take up space especially if you have more than 2. Imagine the effects of that at a screen resolution of 640x480. Plus no one likes two scroll bars. You can of course put it at no scroll but again there is the problem of screen resolutions, if the frame is longer than a certain size, no scrolling would mean that a lot of people cannot see the bottom half (since they would not be able to scroll). It can be very difficult to get the perfect layout using frames and making sure that they work at all resolutions.

Navigation

Make sure your navigation is simple. A menu, either text or graphical should be available on each page. If your site is huge, make sure visitors at all times know which section they are in and provide simple, easy to find links that lead them back to the main page and/or other sections.