Why This Site Has Almost No Graphics
Several reasons:
- Download times rule the Web, and since most users have access speeds on the order of 28.8 kbps, Web pages can be no more than 3 KB if they are to download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 30 KB at modem speed. Keeping below these size limits rules out most graphics.
- I am not a visual designer, so my graphics would look crummy anyway. Since this website is created by myself (and not by a multidisciplinary team as I always recommend for large sites) I didn't want to spend money to hire an artist.
For more info about the need for sub-second response times, see my book
Multimedia and Hypertext: The Internet and Beyond
or my short essay on the three main response time limits.
I did have to add a small glyph to the navigation bar to emphasize the meaning of the hierarchy nesting. My original design used a simple colon to separate the levels, but some users thought that the colons indicated alternative choices on the same level (and not a progressively deeper nesting of options, as intended). The arrows seem to be slightly easier to understand as an indication of moving deeper and deeper into the site.
Before: use of a colon as hierarchy separator
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After: use of an arrow as hierarchy separator
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