Page Bloat and Download Scope Creep
As a web design / development professional a big part of our job is ensuring the deliverables actually work in the outside world - not just on broadband or the company intranet. Design gone mad tends to call for one more image, an extra widget or another kick-arse feature like a movie or a slideshow. And, sometimes you can see the beginning of this when you watch navigation elements get pushed below the fold in order to appease the business entities calling for more design. Remember, those stakeholders aren’t paid to understand the craft. That’s our job as web professionals.
Here’s the crux of it - this is the web. It’s a technology that we interact with differently than television or magazines, it’s not a multimedia extravaganza or an exercise in the finer points of print on paper. The challenge comes from not having complete control over the users’ environment, but designing around that limitation and making it work better, smarter, transparently. We have a limited set of reliable fonts. We have no control over the user’s speed of access, their personal viewing habits or culture, and definately not a skerrick of control over the equipment they’re using (including a screen’s age, model, size, resolution, quality). It’s not just Apple versus PC. We can test sites on calibrated Mac monitors until the cows come home but any web professional with a bit of salt in their gills understands that most of the world isn’t using calibrated monitors, for a start. Most of the world isn’t us.
Most of the world don’t have the latest and greatest, they aren’t IT professionals and they don’t know where every link and sub-folder in our directory sits. Our job as an interface designer is to make that knowledge gap between the user’s limitations and the design experience as close as possible. That’s design in a nutshell. Imagine design as a continuum where you develop the bridge between a user’s current understanding and the knowledge they need to perform a task, or their ability to understand an interface. The secret of quality web design is in providing that bridge. A big part of that, I’d suggest, is an understanding of how technology impacts on each decision throughout the interfaces.
That’s why interface design is so difficult - because everyone else doesn’t get it. We’re charged with the job of sending the unwanted message into that business conversation and asking questions like - why? Like - who will that benefit? And - who will that decision disadvantage? It’s our job to understand the technologies and the limitations of the medium because web development is about being smart as much as it is about being pretty. Aesthetics is an important part - but it’s not the golden child, by a long shot. Seriously, given unlimited bandwidth and a trove of quality imagery we can all produce something very nice. However, a web professional with a little salt in their gills tends to work hard along that trade-off between user experience and functionality and the need for striking aesthetic design. That’s the challenge. Aesthetics, usability, accessibility - welcome to the world of compromise and judgement calls.
The problem of page bloat often comes when the developer stops asking why. It comes because when the business stakeholders want one more image or an extra feature but nobody is willing to stand up and say - I know these truths to be facts of the industry at this point in time. It’s as simple as that. Imagine if an architect designed a house on the basis of stakeholder wants alone - that’s an awesome house. Pool, 5 car garage, tennis court, spa, cinema complex, a deck, gimme a large backyard with a feature garden, and throw in a bungalow at the back for my office staff of five to work overnighters. Now it goes to the builder who says WTF and finally there appears a problem. It won’t fit on the suburban block! That, by the way, is the architect’s job. As our’s is to understand the limitations and options available in our industry.
This is where standardistas are normally shot in the trenches as the rest go over the top with a fancy new Flash interface or the Jungle Jim divitis of semi-emulated tables. Standardistas know better, even if the world at large carries on regardless with the Titanic sinking and the band playing all the way down.
And every web professional should understand how the DOM (Document Object Model) works. That every asset must be pulled from the server with HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) requests / responses. Every image, every stylesheet, every ounce of markup, content and scripting. It all adds up to page weight. And we understand the limitations of that paradigm - everyone isn’t on broadband and everyone isn’t prepared to pay for 1MB of data just to see your homepage.
I sometimes picture myself as Gordon Ramsay saying “For Fuck Sake!”. And sometimes I catch myself saying it. Because there’s nothing as depressing as getting a “Please Explain” or “Don’t go there” when it’s a simple matter of knowing your craft. For Fuck Sake!
