Page size?

[three_4me]

I've been doing ASP and ASP.NET development pretty heavily for the last 6-8 months now and wondered what the general concensus was for the size of a page. I realize it can depend on what you are doing in the page, but as a general rule, what is good, bad and acceptable?

[allida77]

If you are talking about resolutions, IMO it is good practice to code for 800 X 600.

[three_4me]

I always design for 800x600, unfortunately this is still the preferred resolution :( , but oh well. I really meant KB page size. When is a page too big. Like I said before, I know a lot of factors can contribute to a page, even it it's small. Scripts (good coding or bad) and stuff like that is what I'm talking about. For those that have been doing web dev for longer than I, what have you found as a good barometer to know when a page is too big and needs to be broken up?

[newmate]

Well a sort of rule of thumb is that if the page takes over 8 seconds to load on a 56k connection you will be losing many of your visitors.
The front page should light as possible, but also be attractive and clearly show the visitor that what they want is here in the website. Then you can place the heaver pages in the site, they will be more willing to wait for the content if they know it is what they are looking for. Even then I would not want to see the other pages take much over 15 seconds, 20 seconds max.
Also consider the target visitor. The above is basically for everyone, but if most of your visitors would likely be using broadband then I would reduce the times by 20-30% based on the broadband load speed (broadband users are less patient than analog users)!
Just my 2¢ worth.

[justame]

thr...
/me just a tries® to keep that firrrst page under 30k...

[Mhtml]

I go by the rule:

You have 11 seconds to captivate your users attention.

[webmarkart]

justame came up with the exact number that I usually try to stick to... (30k)

[oracleguy]

I heard at a Microsoft developer conference a few months ago:

In the US only 40% of the people have internet access thats 56k or faster. And only 10% of that 40% have broadband

[BrainJar]

One caveat is that screen resolution does not equal browser size, unless the user happens to surf with the browser window maximized. Even then, the actual size of the viewport (the area where the page is displayed) can vary depending on the browser and what tool bars or side bars are on.

If you're developing in ASP .NET I'd recommend switching from grid layout to flow. The grid layout model relies on absolute positioning and fixed pixel widths for elements.

That's all well and good if your users all have the same fonts and display settings as you do - and keep their browsers at the same size as you. But if not, it can ruin your well-planned layout.

Flow layout gives you less control but it does allow the browser to better fit the content to it's available drawing area. Just don't panic if it looks different from browser to browser or even screen to screen. As long as it's legible for everyone you've done your job.

[three_4me]

Just wanted to say I appreciate everyone's input ... Dan

[brothercake]

(30k)

30K ??? I'd consider a page under 100K is doing pretty well