Writing for the Web

Print-Friendly Page
Authors & Contributors

Test your pages to see how quickly they appear in your browser. Your readers will understand that the Web is a fairly slow medium. However, don't strain their patience. Your pages should load within 10 to 20 seconds – and preferably faster. If they take longer than that, consider reducing the size of any images on the page. If necessary, consider eliminating some images.

If you've included audio and video files on your Web page, test the speed at which these files open in your browser. If you can, test your files on a computer that connects to the Web at the same speed as that used by your readers. If you are connecting to the Web with a high speed connection, you might not notice that a page takes a long time to load or that audio and video files don't run well on computers that connect using modems.

A number of HTML editing programs can provide information about the size of individual pages (including all images and embedded media). Some of these programs will also estimate the load time needed for a page of a particular size. You can learn more about HTML editors on the HTML links page.

Previous Step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Next Step