Try Before You Buy

Often you will wish to display High Quality Media on your web site.

But you may be put off due to the problems associated with large file sizes and the resulting delay in loading. High quality Photographs Artwork and Rich Media even if placed singularly on the page can often swamp the slower connection with data. Viewers will not normal wait more than a few seconds for a page to start loading never mind minutes. The trick is to let the viewer "Try Before They Buy"

Use a small thumb nail image and a text description to entice the viewer to down load the slower quality product. The viewer having made the considered choice to down load will normal accept the wait especially if having been warned of the possible delay. This is further enforced by the knowledge they are waiting for something worth while having had a taster.

Using multiple links in this manner results in fast loading pages for all and targets traffic and band width as appropriate.

Options to implement this technique vary widely. The simplest is to invoke a "POP UP WINDOW" if the user selects an item. Another is to create a player in or with a frameset. Frameset players can be created manually in Dreamweaver or with one of may external programs. Automated creation tools abound and can resize and code a block of images in just a few minutes. They often have a distinct proprietary look but Dreamweaver can then be used to customise the end result.