The one argument I would make to the "pick one optimal size" theory is that, in some cases, there is no optimal size. One company where I worked had a catalog of millions of products with images.
Because there were so many products to choose from, users tended to want to see as many results on a page as they could without slowing things down too much. The biggest problem for us was the huge variation in computer quality and connection speed, which made the pages load at wildly different speeds for different customers. What would be sub-second response for a user with a new computer and DSL could take several seconds for someone with an old computer on dial up. For some reason, our user base had a pretty significant contingent of people at both ends of the range, so it was tough for us to pick an optimal size for the pages. We offered several different page sizes, remembered the users' preferences, and let people decide for themselves what their computer and connection could handle. Of course, products that have different types of customers don't necessarily have this problem, so it might be best in those cases to not clutter up the page with extra choices that their customers don't need. It's all about understanding the actual needs of your particular users, right? Laura Klein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47813 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
