I've seen pages that ask viewers to change the width of their browser window or adjust other settings before proceeding beyond the home page. Why?
A1:
The idea is that the web page author can offer a better presentation if she has some control over the size of readers' windows or fonts. Of course, few people ever bother to change their settings, so these sites often look weird or unreadable. You'll be much better off using the tips you learn in this book to make your site readable and attractive at any window size and a wide variety of browser settings. The better organized your site is, the more usable it will be for visitors.
Q2:
Won't lots of comments and spaces make my pages load slower when someone views them?
A2:
The size of a little extra text in your pages is negligible when compared to other, chunkier web page resources such as images. Besides, slower dial-up modem connections typically do a decent job of compressing text when transmitting it, so adding spaces to format your HTML doesn't usually change the transfer time at all. You'd have to type hundreds of comment words to cause even one extra second of delay in loading a page. And keep in mind that with the broadband connections (cable, DSL, and so on) that many people now have, text travels extremely fast. It's the graphics that slow pages down, so squeeze your images as tightly as you can (refer to Hour 7, "Creating Your Own Web Page Graphics"), but use text comments freely.
Q3:
Will you look at my site and give me some suggestions on how to improve it?
A3:
I'd like to, really. Truly I would. If I looked at all my readers' sites and offered even a tiny bit of wisdom for each, however, I would be at it for hours every day. I have looked at hundreds of reader sites, and my advice usually amounts to this: Your site looks pretty or ugly and you have the basic idea of HTML, but you need to make it clearer, first, who your site is intended for, in the first sentence or heading; second, what earthly good your site is going to do them; and third, what you want them to do as a result of visiting your site. All the great graphics and HTML-manship in the world can't substitute for clearly and consistently answering those three questions for yourself and for your site's visitors. In other words, it's all about the content! Focus on the big picture and then use HTML to methodically bring it into view.
