StanSight

Designing for Broadband OK

It looks like designing your website for broadband is OK now.

According to Leichtman Research broadband penetration in the US should break 90% by mid-2008. This is based on a survey conducted in February of 2008 showing that broadband was in 57% of U.S. households: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0802/

Personally - I’ll take the trending numbers with a grain of salt until they are confirmed, but this defintly shows that a majority of US households now have broadband, and I would hazard a guess that those households contain the newest and most active populace of the web surfing world.

So if you are designing for mid to younger audiences - go hog wild with the graphics, videos and flash. If you are designing a geneology or quilting bee web site - stick with small graphics and text for those dial up users.

But - in all cases - follow good design principles. Remember more is not always better: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/100/beauty-of-simplicity.html