Re: where to use large graphics (e.g. image maps)

["Mark J. Allen" <marcusi -at- OMEN -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

Hi.

Lavonna said...
>Simon North wrote the following excellent advice to the
>current thread of Re: WWW long or short.

>Think of your poor reader. There is nothing more annoying than having
>to wait ages for a page to download - only to discover that it wasn't
>interesting after all. [...] don't put a major graphic at the top of the
>page(s). Better still, offer the reader the option of a text only
>version.

>I'd like more discussion on this from Simon and others
>involved in public Web pages.  What do you think of image maps?
>They seem so spiffy, and they show off the author's skill, but
>as a Web user, I get really annoyed...

>The downside is that I'm currently designing my company's
>home page, and I think my boss really likes large image maps.
>So, the meat of my question is this:  Where is it appropriate to
>use a 20K image map?

I would say the answer to the latter is _anywhere_ as long as its use is
pre-planned with as SN suggests text only alt page or alt hyperlinks on the
same page...
Netscape at least will reserve space for a graphic as nominated in the html
and then carry on transferring the source of the page so the clickable image
can have mouse clicks processed before being fully drawn(fwiw), or at least have
adjacent text alternative hyperlinks visible for user selection.
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