Do you wait for pages to load?

by Azam Corry

Though I always recommend that you design your pages to load as fast as possible, just as I do with my own, I actually never wait for pages to load when I'm surfing. However, statistics abound that show that most people do wait, since it's the #1 reason for people leaving a web site. With that in mind, it occurred to me that obviously most people don't surf the way I do, otherwise, page load times wouldn't be such an issue.

I don't wait for pages to load simply because I always surf with between 2 - 4 browser windows open at once. Why doesn't everyone else do that? It saves so much time! Now I know I have an unfair advantage over most of you because I use a Mac, but even Windoze (Oops! Did I really say that? :-) machines will let you keep several windows active at once.

If you have a small monitor and you find you don't have enough room on the screen, just use 2 windows that overlap completely except for a small sliver across the bottom and down one side. This means whichever window is at the back, there will always be enough of it visible for you to click on and bring it to the font.

Alternatively you can minimize a window to the bottom of the screen. It will continue to load, even though you're not looking at it. If you run a Mac, just double click on the top frame of the window for it to shoot up like a roller blind, leaving only the title bar visible. Double click on it to open again.

You can either view pages from different sites in different windows, or different pages from the same site, or a combination of the two.

Or what about this: You know the situation, you're reading an interesting paragraph and you come upon a text link. You want to keep reading so you probably decide to come back to it when you've finished - a real pain if the piece ends on the next page!

If you have your windows open on the screen at the same time (as opposed to collapsed) you can really take advantage of these text links with ease. Just highlight the link, click on it and without releasing the mouse, drag the link into another window, where the page will quietly open whilst you continue with your reading!

If you only have one window open at this point, not to worry. Simply right click on the link (click and hold for a moment on a Mac) and a menu will pop up. Scroll down the menu and select "open link in new window" (MSIE) or "new window with url" (NAV).

If you're not already surfing with multiple windows, you really should, it will save you an awful lot of time. And time is money!

Here's an example of how much time you might be wasting:

Generally, I average about 4 hours a day online. Assume I spend an average of 5 minutes on each page (many pages will get much less of my time. If I don't find something that interests me after a quick 30 second 'overview scan', I'm gone. On interesting pages, which are far less frequent, I will spend considerably longer).

So, 4 x 60 = 240 minutes online each day, divided by 5 mins/page ==>Average of 48 pages visited a day.*

Now, lets say the average of all page load times is 20sec. ==>48 pages x 20sec = 960sec or 16 minutes wasted each day!

I'm often online every day, so that's almost 2hrs a week! And I pay for both the telephone call and the ISP access charge!!

I can't afford to waste up to 100hrs a year waiting for pages to load...

Can you?

*According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the average surfer spends approximately 3 hours online per week, during which time, he or she views an average of about 40 Web pages.

© 1999-2000 Azam Corry "Do it Better. Do it Faster. Do it Right!"

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