Are Images bad?

[notepad_coder]

I have made two versions of my site, one uses all images and one only uses four. I have been told I should start making all my layouts with images but then some people say too many images are bad. I personally like the one without images but I like the way heavy image sites look. What do you guys think is better, heavy or light image sites?

[xhtmlcoder]

That depends; in general if I surf with images turned-off I expect to see alt or title descriptions, so at least a site is navigational - Quite regularly believe it or not, I keep images disabled.

However, I think the core theme is how fast is your visitors connection, when I surf it is mainly done on a T-1 thus I don't normally have to wait too long for most sites to load, if I were on dialup connection I certainly would get annoyed waiting for fluff images.

Again it would depend upon what your sites target audience were, if you are graphics Design Company, you'd probably have images everywhere, if you were trying to aim at delivering textual content then one or two good images is more than enough.

I think the URL you have posted looks very clean and gives me the information what I want without fuss or having to have images enabled just to read text.

};-) http://www.xhtmlcoder.com/

[Clampants]

I'm in the school of thought that there can be a happy medium between an image-intensive site and an image-free site.

In my designs, I always lean towards one with fewer images, but that's about it. I find the trend of image-free sites (those sites crafted using CSS for all design elements) to be...well, quite boring to be honest. Many of the sites looks all-too-similar, and are lacking a certain graphic "punch" that I like to see. I'll admit that the speed of download and the "liquidity" of CSS-based layouts are really appealing, however.

On the other hand, i'm not a big fan of huge images that have been sliced up in Fireworks or Imageready (or whatever) and are called a site. That kind of practice gets clunky, and can be painfully hard to edit (not to mention the download speeds).

Well, those are just my opinions. I'm all for a gracefull use of images to spice up a page and enhance the display of information (not detract from it)...of course, always keeping in mind your audience and/or specifications. I guess I just try to keep in mind that if I can create a graphic element through other means (CSS or whatnot), i'll do it...if not, I just make sure that my images are optimized, small, and cool-looking

Tim
http://www.clampants.com | http://www.fivesevenfive.com

[guysmy]

Originally posted by xhtmlcoder
in general if I surf with images turned-off I expect to see alt or title descriptions, so at least a site is navigational - Quite regularly believe it or not, I keep images disabled.

I can't believe that. I'd go nuts if the web was void of visuals. I certainly wouldn't have gotten into web design.

I guess it depends on your target:

1) logical target - "all these images are slowing down my navigation"

2) creative target - "it's hard for me to see this site as a unique entity of sorts when it has no imaging to set it apart from every other web site in the universe..."

I think a good design needs at least some imaging...but make your graphics meaningful...not just fluff. Pictures can say things words cannot. Think of it as a different channel of communication.

[Maelstrom]

I like sites without graphics.
I like sites with some graphics but not a whole page of graphics
I hate ALL sites with too many graphics

Simple and sweet but so true. Plain sites can look awesome and sometimes better then big and fancy sites. Sites with graphics to spice up the look, generally, look better because of the options given by graphics. Sites with too many graphics, I leave.

[Mark T.]

Images are fine with me, as long as they do not needlessly clutter the screen and cause long loading times.
I believe every element on the screen should serve some sort of function.

[GarethP]

I decided not to use images because of down load time, it also means I am able to use them in the future.

[qamar]

It really depends on the type of site you are designing for.

If its a site serving text based information I would want it to load fast and not be slowed down by unnecessary graphics.

If however its a comic fanzine website then i am going to want to see cartoons and i would be prepared to wait that little bit longer for them to download.

Horses for courses as they say!!

Qamar

[notepad_coder]

I can see like graphic design sites using images, but I hate the sites that are all images and that's it. I personally like sites with text information and withou a lot of images.It may be because I just don't like heavy image sites but to me they look ugly.

[crankin]

I find graphics the ideal way to compliment a website

Though I would agree that for some purposes images aren't neccessary.

But my theory is that if you were to revieve a letter in the mail advertising a book store (per say)and it was printed on a piece of paper with a text colour and background color and maybe a plain coloured border- are you more likely to visit that bookstore than if they sent you out a full colour brochure with images of the books, Nice fancy title images etc.

I find it the same with the web.

I would never design a clients website without attractive graphics to compliment it, or just using css and no graphics.

[Andrew-J2000]

I think the image has to blend into the layout and scheme of the page if not it doesn't belong there or the layout/scheme needs to be altered

[moonman]

I think it depends on the site.

I build a lot of sites for hotels (yawn), and for them, the pictures sell the hotel. If someone from another country wants to find a hotel, they'll not book one without seeing what it's like. So the pictures are an absolute must.

[jbradley]

When using images, be sure to consider your users. Are your users most likely to all have good connections, or do their connection speeds differ widely? If you use a lot of images on your site, be sure to test the load time on systems other than your own. If they don't load well with a 56k, then perhaps you should reduce their size or reduce the number of images if you have to. Overall, as long as the images don't take an outrageous time to load or take up unnecessary space on your site, they should be fine. It is far better to have too few images rather than too many...at least your visitors will be more likely to stick around until your page finishes loading.

Jason

[Skunk]

Personally I am of the opinion that for nearly ALL sites content and download speed are FAR more important than making it look impressive with lots of images. For proof look at google - ludicrously fast, very few images (although the design isn't too bad). If your site loads completely in under 10 seconds (the google front page takes a couple of seconds to load on a modem) your visitors will thank you for it. I would much rather visit well designed, slightly boring sites that load in an instant then top heavy graphic laden sites that are a work of art but take an age to load.

www.scottandrew.com is an example of what I mean - very clean, professional design with only one image on the front page (a small photo). It loads fast and is full of excellent content, so I visit it daily.

[lloydi]

Whatever approach you take, bear these points in mind:

* Images will slow your site down, no two ways about it. If the slow-down is too much, it matters not how nice those images are - people will hit that back button

* Some people will continue to load the site but switch off images (I do this often if things are taking too long). How does your site look with images disabled? Is it still usable?

* Ensure all you images have alt attributes, and that those alt attributes are useful!

[Ruchir]

well.. it depends ont the kind of site too. but use of images in a site is no harm uless it occupies much space. that'll take time to load. if it doesnt take much time to load, than images make ur page look interactive and cool. so theres nothing wrong in using em..