 | Teajai Kimsey
is Managing Partner and founder of Beyond Web Design, LLC. She is a graduate of Friends University. Teajai is involved with many organizations and has many personal and professional achievements. She is involved in the community by serving on the Youth Council, volunteering with the Summer B.E.A.T. Youth Program and is active in the local branch of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Teajai and her husband Paul Hendrix have 3 children. You can contact Teajai @ (316) 262-4868 or by e-mail TKimsey@BWDLLC.com |
Computers & Software
2004-05-01 16:34:00
Is ‘dial-up’ still prominent?
: We are wanting to build a corporate website. We would like it to be unique and offer things most sites don't offer. We are concerned however about the speed at which things we add will load. Is this a consideration any longer with high speed access in so many places, or are there still a lot of people and businesses with dial-up or slower speed connections?
ANSWER: Having a website that is equally accessible to the majority of visitors is important in any development project. The difference between having a high speed connection to the internet and a dial-up connection is significant and can affect the overall experience of visiting a website.Although high speed connections like cable or DSL are becoming more common, the latest statistics show that broadband usage (high speed internet access) is still lagging behind narrowband (dial-up) connections. In the Midwest, there are 33% more people on dial-up than both DSL and cable.* Companies that are planning to launch a new or redesigned website need to bear this in mind when considering unique or cutting edge applications. Part of the reason that broadband has not been more widely adopted is because there is very little if any access to broadband in rural communities outside metropolitan areas. Additionally, the cost of broadband is still considered too high for many small to mid size businesses and residential customers. If your target market includes these groups, designing a website that will be effectively transmitted through dial-up will be important. For example, having photos on a website is fine with dial-up and broadband but too many photos or photos that are larger than normal will cause web pages to take longer to load. Relatively new applications like "flash" can also cause a drag on website loading time, although, like images, smaller files are fine. The most noticeable problem when looking at dial-up versus broadband is streaming videos, streaming audio, and virtual tours. These applications are jerky at best when accessed via the typical dial-up connection. Many times dial-up visitors simply cannot connect to the applications at all, sometimes causing them to miss important information.The good news is that broadband is being adopted at an increasing rate. The number of broadband users is "expected to more than double to 46 million-plus households in the United States by 2008, up from 21.5 million at the end of last year" according to a Jupiter Research report in January of this year. The anticipated increase is due in large part to the competition between the different internet service providers causing more affordable rates. A good rule of thumb when designing a website is to strive for load times around 10 seconds per page. Studies have show that visitors will not wait much longer than the 10 second mark before giving up completely and going to another website. That doesn't sound like a lot of time but when a visitor comes to a website, 10 seconds seems like an eternity.
