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Podcast #73: Bandwidth & Download Time

Dennis and Ross provide nearly an hour of news, knowledge, and fun!

Download Web Axe Episode 73 (Bandwidth & Download Time)

Michigan and Web Dudes, Lab, and Accessible Twitter

Web Accessibility News

Main Segment

The Issue & Statistics
  • Web accessibility is about providing content for everyone; even if the user is unable to have access to a broadband internet connection.
  • Economic issue; many people simply can’t afford broadband.
  • Mobile–light and fast web sites can be more easily viewed on you phone!
  • Average Web Page Size Triples Since 2003 (study from 2003-2008 data)
  • In the U.S. in March 2008, users connecting at 56Kbps or less now make up 11.18% of active Internet users.
  • CWA Communications reported that the “median real-time download speed in the U.S. is a mere 2.3 megabits per second (mbps). The best available estimates show average download speeds in Japan of 63 mbps, in South Korea of 49 mbps and in France of 17 mbps.

Growth of Average Web Page Size and Number of Objects

Chart shows that from January 1995 to January 2008, there was a tremendous growth of average page size and average number of objects. The average page file size went from 14.1k in 1995, to 93.7k in 2003, to over 312k in 2008. The average number of page objects went from 2.3k in 1995, to 25.7 in 2003, to nearly 50 in 2008.

Related WCAG Guidelines

WCAG 2.0 Principle 4: Robust

Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG 1.0 Intro states:

user may have a text-only screen, a small screen, or a slow Internet connection and users may have turned off support for images (e.g. due to a slow Internet connection)

Greatly outdated web portion of Section 508 doesn’t mention internet connection speed.

What You Can Do
  • Use progressive enhancement.
  • Optimize images; use sprites.
  • Write clean code.
  • Use external CSS and JavaScript files. For CSS, use not @import.
  • Combine multiple CSS files into one. Same for JavaScript.
  • Use media domains.
  • Minify CSS and JS files.
  • Setup your server to send pages and files compressed.
  • Cache dynamic data and Ajax when appropriate.
More from the Big Boys
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conference event presentations twitter

Speaking on “Twitter and Web Accessibility” at AHG

Web Axe host Dennis Lembree will be speaking on “Twitter and Web Accessibility” at the 12th Annual Accessing Higher Ground conference in Colorado this mid-November.

The conference is November 10 thru 14. The labs are scheduled for a Tuesday and Wednesday, then the main conference is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. (One day longer than last year!) Dennis is scheduled to speak on Thursday at 9:15am.

The keynote speaker is T.V. Raman, Research Scientist, Google, Inc. Dolphin Computer Access, LTD will sponsor one of the conference computer labs. They will also present 2 hand-on sessions on alternate format conversion.

The location of the conference is the Westin Hotel in Westminster, which is about 30 miles from the Denver International Airport (DEN). The hotel, or resort I should say, looks very nice!

You may register here. The shortened URL is tinyurl.com/ahg2009. Hope to see you there!

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design html5 podcast twitter

Podcasts from Tweeps: Universal Design, SitePoint, Heretech

Some great recent podcasts from some great Tweeps (if you’ve been on Mars, that means users of Twitter).

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firefox law mobile news twitter

Web Accessibility News

Latest goings-on in the web accessibility community. Found all on a valuable resource, Twitter!

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event twitter usability

Usability (and Accessibility) Tweetup in Ann Arbor, July 18

Ross and I are organizing a Usability (and Accessibility) Tweetup in Ann Arbor on Saturday evening, July 18th. Hope you can join us!
  • What: “Usability Tweetup”
  • When: 7pm, Saturday, July 18, 2009
  • Where: Ann Arbor Brewing Company in downtown Ann Arbor [Google map]
  • Why: To discuss web usability, web accessibility, Twitter; socialize; drink beer