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Download speed

The download speed of your web pages is extremely important to the success of your internet presence.  The structure of this article is as follows::

• Introduction.
• Type of connection and response time.
• Total size of the page
• The 50Kb limit.
• The ten seconds rule.
• Conclusions.

Introduction:

If the access speed of your pages is fast, the whole experience for people visiting your website will be much more positive than if it takes a long time to download the content.
 
The main factors which influence access speed are: the type of connection, the response of the web server to the person accessing it and the total size of the web page.

Type of connection and response time:

With regard to the type of connection, we must bear in mind the manner in which most of our visitors access the internet. If our audience is mainly in Spain, they will access it almost always via ADSL (from 256Kbs up), whilst, if it is South America, they will access it in most cases via a modem (56Kbs or less).
 
This information indicates to us the extent to which we can fill our website with images, animation, etc.  It is also god to bear in mind that the lines of communication are more saturated at key times, and that our pages will load more slowly at those times.
 
With regard to the response time of the server, we must check the performance of the hosting service we have contracted, particularly at key times, to decide whether we want our website hosted by them.

The total page size :

With regard to the total webpage size, we must take into account all of the elements downloaded with each HTML page (images, JavaScript, css, animations, etc).  We can establish the global position of each of our pages using this free tool:

Web Page Analyzer

The most important data is the global size afore-mentioned.  This service also provides us with information which can be very useful to improve our web pages and gives us a number of recommendations to optimize them.

The 50 Kb limit:

In general terms, the maximum total size recommended for a webpage is 50kb.  This will give us an access speed of 8-10 seconds with a 56kb modem, which falls within the recommended time.  And, if the visitor is using ADSL, the response time will be very quick, with which the whole experience will be that much more positive for the visitor.

The ten seconds rule :

Jakob Nielsen, the usability (www.useit.com), created the ten second rule, which indicates the relation between access speed and the sense of interactivity experienced by the user.

• A tenth of a second is the limit to ensure a user carrying out a task feels that the system is responding immediately.
• One second is the limit to ensure that the workflow of a user remains uninterrupted, allowing him to sense a delay but not to lose the sense of a direct connection with the task in hand.
• Ten seconds is the upper limit to maintain the users focus on any individual task.  When delays of ten seconds or more are experienced, the users tend to move on to other tasks or feel frustrated by the lack of system response (other sources say the limit is eight seconds).

Conclusions:

The access speed of our web pages can mean that our website gains many more interested and repeat visits.  All successful websites have as their objective for their visitors to have comfortable and easy access to information and be able to carry out, without inconvenience, the tasks they came to achieve.  It is always advisable to remember this.
 
I hope this article on download speed help you to greatly improve the results you achieve from your investment in the internet.

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