NWDA Site Accessibility

[FrankB]

Hi all,

I would apreciate your help. I had a few reports of people who would see an error message pop up in their browser, when visiting http://www.nwdanet.com

Now, to be honest so far I've heard of only two people having that problem, but with websites it's just like in a restaurant: if the food is not good, 99% of people just won't return, and only 1% actually complain.

Through this poll my goal is to find out more about the magnitude of the problem, and ideally whether the problem can be condensed down to specific environments and circumstances.

If you vote that you had a problem, please post the following too:
1 - exact decription of what happens
2 - your OS and OS Version, your brower and version, any security tools active

Many thanks,
Frank

[Oshyan]

Not sure if my "yes" vote is quite correct as the page loads for me and usually without error. My problem is it's generally very slow, particularly on initial page load before anything actually displays. There is maybe a 3-5 second delay before I see anything at all. After that it loads ok. That would generally indicate an incorrect ordering of page element loading I think, e.g. some large javascript or something preloading before the rest of the page (I think maybe the slide show at top?). Usually you can rearrange the way the page loads to make this more efficient.

This behavior is consistent across multiple browsers and systems. I'm located in San Francisco, CA on a 22mbit download, 5mbit upload cable connection.

- Oshyan

[FrankB]

Thanks Oshyan, also for the detailed description!

[Oshyan]

Update: Analysis of the page with Chrome's analysis tools shows some *tremendously* large images loading in that top image fader. 2.4MB for "beautiful day"! The images there are fairly small in resolution, so I strongly suggest you resize and recompress them all. I bet you can get most down below 100kb, where as several are well over that now. Analysis with tools like those in Chrome or Firebug in Firefox would be highly recommended.

- Oshyan

[Henry Blewer]

I just accessed NWDA Frank. The page loaded in 1.5 seconds. My typical download speed is about 2.23 mb/s.

[rcallicotte]

I have never had a consistent problem with any of the NWDA pages loading.  Whenever I had a problem, it was something you knew about or something you were working on to make better, etc.

I can attest to noting a slight slowdown on the first page sometimes.  Oshyan has it figured out, I think.

[TheBlackHole]

No problems here. I just wish it were possible to download the free packs without signing up, though.

[FrankB]

Ok, I've removed the super-big image from the slide show... didn't realize this myself. I must have uploaded the wrong image file by accident, and never noticed because it's all in my browser cache... or something.

Anything else?

Thanks,
Frank

[Henry Blewer]

There is enough content now to justify a site map, or an index page perhaps.

[reck]

Hi I voted no as i've never had an error when accessing the site. However like Oshyan I do see a bit of a delay before I see anything on the page, it's blank for maybe 3-4 seconds before the page pops up.