Wednesday 8th May 2002
Too Flash
Manufacturers' overcomplex website score poorly amongst British users
Discussion
A properly coded HTML page will work equally well on a GUI or text based browser. That's what such niceties as ALT tags give us..
that aside, the simple truth is that if a page takes too long (and I'm not a patient man..) I'll go elsewhere. I can't blame anyone for doing the same. if web designers want to cut out a large portion of their potential audience so that they can show what "k3wl sitez" they can produce, so be it - but I won't be going there and no right-minded businmessman with a proper understaning of online matters would give such a project the go-ahead.
that aside, the simple truth is that if a page takes too long (and I'm not a patient man..) I'll go elsewhere. I can't blame anyone for doing the same. if web designers want to cut out a large portion of their potential audience so that they can show what "k3wl sitez" they can produce, so be it - but I won't be going there and no right-minded businmessman with a proper understaning of online matters would give such a project the go-ahead.
This is true about properly coded HTML but Flash et al are a different kettle of fish. Nice to look at but when it comes to maximising audience they are right out.
It is said that a website has around 12 seconds of a power users time. If it cant load fully and be functional in that time then the chances are that you will have lost your potential audience forever.
Matt.
It is said that a website has around 12 seconds of a power users time. If it cant load fully and be functional in that time then the chances are that you will have lost your potential audience forever.
Matt.
Two problems for the 56K majority (me included).
1) I never get 56K. BT bloke said my 48K was exceptional. Most people actually achieve connection at low 30s to low 40s.
2) You never get to thrash you modem. Windows XP has a handy network utilisation meter and it shows typically 25% and rarely more than 50%. This is because the ISPs share their modems accross more than one logged in user.
Large HTML pages are fine, despite the lousy bandwidth.
What annoys me is over indulgence of animated graphics and use of images which have not been thoughtfully compressed (200K JPEG when 20K JPEG would look virtually the same !).
1) I never get 56K. BT bloke said my 48K was exceptional. Most people actually achieve connection at low 30s to low 40s.
2) You never get to thrash you modem. Windows XP has a handy network utilisation meter and it shows typically 25% and rarely more than 50%. This is because the ISPs share their modems accross more than one logged in user.
Large HTML pages are fine, despite the lousy bandwidth.
What annoys me is over indulgence of animated graphics and use of images which have not been thoughtfully compressed (200K JPEG when 20K JPEG would look virtually the same !).quote:True up to a point - OTOH, the major benefit of Flash (aahhhaaarrr - he saved every one of us
This is true about properly coded HTML but Flash et al are a different kettle of fish. Nice to look at but when it comes to maximising audience they are right out.
) is that once the plug-in is installed, impressive applets can be run with only a tiny amount of bandwidth.. this is a different matter entirely from using large bitmap images, frames etc.. quote:
A properly coded HTML page will work equally well on a GUI or text based browser. That's what such niceties as ALT tags give us..
Very true. But try turning off "Show pictures" in your browser options, and see how many sites you can actually navigate. HTML is rarely properly coded - this seems to hold doubly true for sites with lots of pointless decoration.
quote:
that aside, the simple truth is that if a page takes too long (and I'm not a patient man..) I'll go elsewhere.
Ditto that!
quote:Factually incorrect. If you're getting a dial-up speed of 40kbits and yet not getting download speeds of 4-5Kbyte per second, then the capacity of the remote site or some element of the network inbetween is saturated. To test this, download something (drivers, PDFs etc) from your dial-up ISP - if you're getting a download speed below 4.0k per second, complain to them. Better still, change ISP.
2) You never get to thrash you modem. Windows XP has a handy network utilisation meter and it shows typically 25% and rarely more than 50%. This is because the ISPs share their modems accross more than one logged in user.
Typically, due to the asynchronous nature of modems, an access concentrator allows over 85% of connected modems to saturate their link. The advanced algorithms employed by modern ISP kit mean that the end user should always get their full allocation of bandwidth.
Where ISPS balance demand with availability is that they generally need to have 2-3 times as many subscribers as available dial-up ports in order to be economically viable.
quote:Agreed - a lot of people put together sites using Fireworks/Dreamweaver/Frontpage and fail to comprehend that some work usually has to be done on image files to get them down to a sensible size. And they don't notice because they either test the site locally, eschewing the 56k limitation or they have broadband/E1 link.
(200K JPEG when 20K JPEG would look virtually the same !).
quote:
Agreed - a lot of people put together sites using Fireworks/Dreamweaver/Frontpage and fail to comprehend that some work usually has to be done on image files to get them down to a sensible size.
Both Dreamweaver and Frontpage appear to output pretty web pages comprising of garbage HTML which just about works under ideal solutions. Add to that Dreamweaver and Frontpage are simple enough for graphics designers to use with little technical knowledge and hence they aren't used correctly anyway.
We've just paid some graphics designers to build our new web site. The result is hard coded links (to their demo site!), incomprehensible file structure, redundant files in the final release, etc. I have had to rebuild most of it using the best HTML editor of them all... notepad.
Yeah - a Graphic Designer is not a Web designer.. two seperate skills really..
That said, I use Frontpage for my site.. reason is that way I can assemble a layout very quickly with tables. I disable all non-standard features in Frontpage (server extensions support etc.. ) and it produces fairly robust (if not compact) code. I always have to hand code bits though....
That said, I use Frontpage for my site.. reason is that way I can assemble a layout very quickly with tables. I disable all non-standard features in Frontpage (server extensions support etc.. ) and it produces fairly robust (if not compact) code. I always have to hand code bits though....
CarZee - I'd really love to be wrong on this one.... I'm only adding up what I've observed and what I've read and coming to some conclusions. If you suspect I can get better bandwidth then I'm really interested.
I'll see if I can dig up the small print I found from an ISP I was considering using. Having got my eye in - I reckon the majority of ISP practice this, but are reluctant to admit it even in the small print. It's no surpise, but BT are particularly bad at making performance guarantees and declaring service limitations.
quote:I have access to three ISPs and they are all much of a muchness.
To test this, download something (drivers, PDFs etc) from your dial-up ISP - if you're getting a download speed below 4.0k per second, complain to them. Better still, change ISP.
quote:I wish !
The advanced algorithms employed by modern ISP kit mean that the end user should always get their full allocation of bandwidth.
quote:From what I've read, I believe they share live dialup connections between modems.
Where ISPS balance demand with availability is that they generally need to have 2-3 times as many subscribers as available dial-up ports in order to be economically viable.
I'll see if I can dig up the small print I found from an ISP I was considering using. Having got my eye in - I reckon the majority of ISP practice this, but are reluctant to admit it even in the small print. It's no surpise, but BT are particularly bad at making performance guarantees and declaring service limitations.
Duncan - the limiting factor which I may have overlooked is the quality of the line... it's far from uncommon for lines on some older BT exchanges (and old local loop cabling) to give a dial-up rate of 40K and then only yield 30k due to signal quality and the dodgy solution which V90/92 represents is quickly dropped back to V34 (33.6k) on the fly - all modems have rate adaption and will drop down to a lower speed if there are transmission problems, and then not revert back. The modem will not tell the computer that it has adjusted its line speed as it's all supposed to be transparent.
IIRC, BT will only guarantee that an analogue phone line is good for 9600bps, or some similar low speed.
Perhaps BT/other provider could perform a line test. They will if you complain.
Perhaps you've had a 2nd line installed except all that your phone provider did was install a DAX multiplexer on the single line, which doubles your number of available lines for voice calls, but still you're limited to single line throughput for data purposes. this is far from uncommon where it would not be cost effective for the engineer to run a second line to a remote location.
Finally, and this is fundamental to analogue telecommunications, they can't share live dialup connections between modems in any other way than I described above.
If my credentials to make these assertions are in question (not being defensive, merely anticipating those who would call black white
) then by all means have a look at my website where you'll see that I am reasonably qualified to speak on the subject
Disclaimer: It's remotely possible that you're seeing a 'feature' of Windows XP - which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole thanks to all the 'auto-doing-things' that it does. Might be alright for Joe Consumer, but I hate the product. There should only be one in control of my PC - Microsoft think it should be them - I think it should be me
>> Edited by CarZee on Wednesday 8th May 14:39
IIRC, BT will only guarantee that an analogue phone line is good for 9600bps, or some similar low speed.
Perhaps BT/other provider could perform a line test. They will if you complain.
Perhaps you've had a 2nd line installed except all that your phone provider did was install a DAX multiplexer on the single line, which doubles your number of available lines for voice calls, but still you're limited to single line throughput for data purposes. this is far from uncommon where it would not be cost effective for the engineer to run a second line to a remote location.
Finally, and this is fundamental to analogue telecommunications, they can't share live dialup connections between modems in any other way than I described above.
If my credentials to make these assertions are in question (not being defensive, merely anticipating those who would call black white
) then by all means have a look at my website where you'll see that I am reasonably qualified to speak on the subject Disclaimer: It's remotely possible that you're seeing a 'feature' of Windows XP - which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole thanks to all the 'auto-doing-things' that it does. Might be alright for Joe Consumer, but I hate the product. There should only be one in control of my PC - Microsoft think it should be them - I think it should be me
>> Edited by CarZee on Wednesday 8th May 14:39
CarZee - Got my second line installed a few months ago; no DAX, engineer says he connected fresh copper all the way to the exchange (One of the advantages of living in a relatively sparsely populated area)
Good theory about line quality, a glitch slowing the modem down and the speed not recovering. I'll see if I can pursuade either of my modems to divulge a little internal information.
I'll have a hunt for the small print I read; I admit that modem sharing does seem a bit screwy, but it might be possible with time multiplexing and a dash of handshaking.
I'm a cynic, and cynically speaking, if they only have, for example, 100 dialup modems and you are caller 101 what are they going to do? Access denial is bad PR and gets customers angry. I'm sure thay would rather slow your access down a bit than deny it altogether.
As for XP. I've been using it (for work) since last October and on the whole the benefits outweigh the problems. It's easy to configure (for Windows), loads of nice-to-have features and best of all it's reliable (for Windows). We use a good variety of Windown versions for product testing (95, 98, NT, 2K, XP) and I'd hate to have to revert back to anything other than perhaps Win2K Pro.
Good theory about line quality, a glitch slowing the modem down and the speed not recovering. I'll see if I can pursuade either of my modems to divulge a little internal information.
I'll have a hunt for the small print I read; I admit that modem sharing does seem a bit screwy, but it might be possible with time multiplexing and a dash of handshaking.
I'm a cynic, and cynically speaking, if they only have, for example, 100 dialup modems and you are caller 101 what are they going to do? Access denial is bad PR and gets customers angry. I'm sure thay would rather slow your access down a bit than deny it altogether.
As for XP. I've been using it (for work) since last October and on the whole the benefits outweigh the problems. It's easy to configure (for Windows), loads of nice-to-have features and best of all it's reliable (for Windows). We use a good variety of Windown versions for product testing (95, 98, NT, 2K, XP) and I'd hate to have to revert back to anything other than perhaps Win2K Pro.
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