Because of the market share of modern browers (depending on your target market), the compatability of your website with the viewers is restricted. For instance, a website that is designed for the majority of websurfers will be limited to the use of valid XHTML 1.0 Strict or older, Cascading Style Sheets Level 1, 1024x768 display resolution, and a size of around 32 KB. This is because Internet Explorer is not fully W3C standards compliant with the modularity of XHTML 1.1 and the majority of CSS beyond 1. The screen resolution and internet speed averages around 1024x768 and 768 kpbs, respectively. Since the ideal loading time of a webpage is 0.3 seconds or less, a connection of 768 kbps (DSL/Cable) would mean a size of 32 KB or less.
The maximum time a webpage should load is around 1 second, so a max file size of 96 KB would be appropriate. This is part of the reason why Wikipedia pages are suggested to be under 32 KB, or else they are considered long. A target market of more alternative browser (e.g. Firefox and Opera) users allow for more W3C compliancy and thus a greater range of options for a web designer. With the availbility of broadband around the same prices as dial-up, faster connection speeds will allow pages to be larger in size and still load in a reasonable time.
Another restiction on webpage design is the use of different Image file formats. The majority of users can support GIF, JPEG, and PNG (with restrictions). Again Internet Explorer is the major restriction here, not fully supporting PNG's advanced transparency features, resulting in the GIF format still being the most widely used graphic file format for transparent images. |
