slow connections: testing we forget to do
How many of us test on slow connections? Really?
We might validate our code, run The Wave over our pages, check the colours against contrast/colourblindness issues... but the simple fact is most of us who work in web development use network/broadband access. Do we pull out a modem and check our sites over dialup? Not unless we are forced to do so. In fact many of us would have trouble organising that at short notice.
Right now, I'm sitting on a 28.8k modem connection in a hotel room (56k is the maximum, remember; not the guaranteed connection); marvelling at how my browsing habits have changed since I got broadband at home. I'm used to doing a number of things at once - some quite high-bandwidth at that - without any real problems. Today everything is taking longer and I've actually switched off images in an attempt to speed things up (oh wait. alt text is just for blind people, right?).
It's disappointing but not in the least bit surprising to discover many sites don't work so well with images turned off... still. This is 2005 people! Get with the program!
Like a twitching junkie played by a ham method actor, I am looking forward to the wifi at WE05 tomorrow ;)
Like many travellers, I have spent quite a bit of time trying to work via the web on a phone line, or even on a phone. It is not uncommon to get an effective speed of something like 9.6k - and if you're running over GSM that's the best you can hope for.
W3C's Mobile Web Initiative is primarily aimed at mobile phones and similar handheld devices. But I hope people remember that the web is one web, and includes people using bigger devices over worse connections, rather than just splitting into a web for phones, a different web for broadband-connected desktops, and a heap of dung for the farmers who are neither one nor the other.
(Yes, I am jealous of you going to WE... Say hello to Dino and have fun...).
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