[thelist] OT: Slower Modems,does it matter? yes

[Brian King]

Your going to get all kinds of answers on this one.  Each argument has it's
merits.

One thing that I feel continually gets missed in this conversation is that
both sets of users, modem and broadband, have different sets of
expectations.  As most others have stated and agree, many people don't
understand what either one means to them except one is fast and one is slow.
They feel that the fast connection ought to get them better stuff than the
slow one, not necessarily more stuff, but better stuff.  I realize that is
rarely the case.

My personal opinion is that you had ought to cater to both as best as you
can.  When you write script for a web page you generally test for the
connecting browser, (NS or IE or etc.), and run different segments of code
based on the connected browser's  abilities.  Of course it is more difficult
to 'test' for connection speeds, but some software vendors, (Realnetworks
Realplayer for instance), ask the user to pick the bandwidth that they are
using and then adjust the amount of content downloaded, (or streamed), to
match that.  If the user picks a bandwidth that is too high for them they
can go back and pick a lower setting.

I think that you will find that a lot of people who have migrated to a
broadband connection will tell you that they look for fat content just to
see how the connection will handle it.  They want to see that extra content.
They want that 'warm fuzzy' from knowing the extra money they spent is
getting them something more.  If you have a broadband connection, where are
you going to go?  To the site with the stripped down content or the site
with the content overload, that lets you pick and choose what you want?  Do
you make your cat eat dog food just because you dog eats more?

Some proven methods of working with the range of bandwidths:
Allow the 56K users to skip the fat content with a prompt.
Give a warning about fat content prior to page navigation.
Post two versions of your content.  One for high and one for low connection
speeds.

Brian

Does connection speed matter - of course it does.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Boisvert
Subject: [thelist] OT: Slower Modems,does it matter?


I was just talking to one of my clients about posting his newsletter to his
site.  In the conversation we had talked about the file size of the document
and I mentioned it would download rather slowly for those who still have a
28.8 or 56K modem.

Now to understand this a little better, it's a church web site and most of
the congregation is in the older category but the target audience is all
ages.

But what was said to me in the conversation was the people who have the
slower modems don't care how long the browser takes to load what ever it is
they want to look at, that's why they are still on the slower modems.

Is this a general feeling among clients and do they actually care about how
fast or slow the downloading of their web site takes for people with slower
modem?.

Bob