Why You Should Avoid Graphic Glitz

August 2002

If you run a commercial/professional website, you should avoid Graphic Glitz: The majority of home Internet users are still constrained to dialup access to the Internet. This means that the more mandatory graphics you put on your website, the longer your site takes to load for the average web surfer. And the longer it takes to load, the less likely the web surfer is to stick around to view your site.

The following URLs list the evidence:


http://www.isp-planet.com/research/2002/us_020208.html

Partial Quote:

The study, "A Nation Online: How Americans Are Expanding Their Use of the Internet", published by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Economics and Statistics Administration, found that 143 million Americans (54 percent of the population) used the Internet in September 2001. That's a 26 percent increase over August 2000. Even more Americans, 174 million, use computers....

...Dialup access is still the norm for most Americans that access the Internet, with 80 percent of residential Internet users connecting though dialup. But the survey found that from August 2000 to September 2001, residential use of broadband Internet access doubled from 4 percent to 11 percent of all individuals, and from 11 to 20 percent of Internet users.


http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/16629.html

Partial Quote:

High-speed home users accounted for 21 percent of the total American online population, while workers using broadband comprised 63 percent of the Internet office population, according to the report.

While broadband users made up only about 20 percent of the total online population, they accounted for half of the time spent on the Internet, the report said.


New UK Internet Access Statistics from the ONS Report for May 2002

Dialup connections account for 95% of all UK connections.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intc0702.pdf

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intacc0702.pdf