On 23 Sep 98, Jack Killpatrick wrote:
> It *was* very slow to load. If I hadn't been curious, I probably woulda
> left rather quickly. For a personal site, where you have an interested
> audience (and maybe one you can tell to be patient), I think it's fine.
>
> As far as your concerns over the lack of "been there already" indicators
> for the images, I think most people will know if they've seen an image
> just by looking at the thumbnail. BTW, this is a nice way to present a
> "web savvy" slide-show - one where the user has control over the order of
> slides, can decide which ones to view and has an easy to use overview of
> their options.
Ta for the kind words Jack... yep, it's slow-loading all right :) But as you
say, this particular site is for friends and relatives, who I can tell in
advance about the delay and who are (presumably) motivated to wait.
The option of pre-loading images via Javascript raises an interesting
dilemma, in the case of a page like this where viewing numerous photos is
the point: is it better to make a user wait initially, while the images are
being cached, in exchange for instant response when clicking on a
thumbnail? Or the opposite, load the basic page much faster, but impose
a time penalty each time the user clicks a thumbnail?
Personally, I get annoyed when rollovers and similar graphic devices don't
work immediately -- I'm never quite sure if the code is actually working, or
is simply trying to load the needed graphic. So I lean towards pre-loading
things wherever possible.
I recall seeing usability research somewhere to the effect that, as long as
a page "appears to be doing something", then users perceive it to be
loading faster and are more likely to wait for it than for a page where
nothing much happens until every element is loaded. Even if the two
pages in question in fact take the same time to load. Makes sense I
guess. I seem to remember seeing a Javascript routine that displays the
status of the pre-loading process as it happens ("Now loading image1...
image2..." etc); I guess this is the best approach, eh?
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
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