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By: Stefene Russell, Thu Jan 26th, 2006
Despite my lousy eyesight, I'm a hopelessly visual person. When I dink around with the site I co-edit with my friend Mary, I scan large stacks of photos and pictures from old pamphlets, and use them liberally. I admit it: I'm a graphics abuser, though sometimes I can't help myself.
This week, I stumbled on two separate articles (one online, one in print) that reminded me lots of people turn off graphics when they surf. I was humbled, and thought about going home to boot some of those images off our site (I'll get back to you on that one). The point is this: if you're aiming to get your site in front of as many eyes as possible, you need to build your site as if everyone on the planet was still pulling up pages with a pokey 24k modem-or a Palm Pilot, for that matter.
*If they can't see it-tell them what it is. You've probably run your mouse over an image (perhaps you could see it, perhaps it did not load) to see a yellow window pop up, with a descriptive phrase inside, e.g., "Stuffed Quetl Bird, circa 1917." If they can't see the pictures, tell them what's there. You can do this by adding a scrap of code into your image tag: alt="Stuffed Quetl Bird, circa 1917"
and insert it so: 
If you don't like to mess
with HTML code, go to the help files for your particular HTML
editor and see how to insert this coding. *Text Links. Those who
cannot see your links cannot navigate your pages (or at the very
least, they'll have a heck of a time). Search engines won't be
able to detect a title or a phrase if it's inside a GIF - after
all, it's not a word, it's a picture of a word. You don't have
to do away with your cool buttons entirely, but be sure to add
text links at the bottom of the page. This is usually a good
idea anyway, images or no; orienting your user at every turn
assures that they won't get lost.
*10,000 Calorie Graphics: Just Say No. Impatient Americans will not wait half an hour for a big fat graphic to download. The rest of the world pays for internet access by the hour, and can't afford to wait that long.
*The First Magic Number is 100… Most web experts advise keeping pages under 100k for efficient loading. The best program I've come across for shrinking images without compromising their quality is Ulead Smartsaver. You can dowload a copy of SmartSaver 3.0 on ZDNet. http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/stories/info/0,,000MF0,.html And for more info, visit the Bandwidth Conservation Society: http://www.infohiway.com/faster/index.html
*The Second Magic number is 216. For best results, stick with the 216 known web-safe colors. Find out more at the Smart Color Picker: http://reallybig.com/resource.php3?catid=21&id=1583
*Thumbnails. If you want so show off photographs of your product, be smart-use thumbnail images in your catalogue that link to a larger version of the photo, so the user can choose to clog up his or her phone line, rather than feel ambushed by a huge picture of tap shoes or home-grown herbs. More on that: http://www.collectorsforum.com humbnail.html
*Crimson and Clover, over and over Got a logo or a top bar? Good. Use that puppy on every page for your graphic. If it's the same graphic on every page, you'll speed things up for your users; their computer only has to download that image once, thus speeding things along for everyone.
And now, I'll print this list and take it home with me; it's time to get down off my soapbox and follow my own advice!
About the author: Stefene Russell is a freelance writer living in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has worked as a print journalist and as Senior Content Producer for citysearch.com. For a free website analysis, email her at stefene@drnunley.com or for a detailed analysis, visit http://www.fixmywebsite.com/analysis.htm