Broadband and the New User Experience
By Joshua Fruhlinger
It should come as little surprise that as users expect more from their online experience, bandwidth-cheating technologies like Flash and MP3 have taken off. We all want the data pipe to get fatter as our ideas for new Web technologies get loftier.
In my six years of Web development, I've spent considerable time explaining to clients and managers that certain things just aren't possible under current bandwidth limitations. To persuade clients to approve design changes, I've made them watch in pain as their sites downloaded over a 56K modem. Similarly, I've forced designers to kill beautiful site designs because they took forever to download.
Unfortunately, technology limitations often make our decisions for us. But if Web designers were given fat connection pipes today, few would know how to use them well. They might throw bigger graphics and larger files on their sites, and most would fail to convert the new freedom into an enhanced user experience. In fact, significant numbers of developers would most likely complicate their sites with useless bells and whistles to the point of user frustration and eventual site failure.
Sober Up
The term broadband, if used correctly, shouldn't become obsolete, because the potential for a faster connection will always light the way like a beacon of Web developer freedom. Today we regard the "broadband age" as a magical, near-future, cyberpunk era in which Web sites will load immediately and the Internet will resemble a flashy DVD-ROM running in a local disk drive. However, when that day arrives, there will no doubt be something better, a newly imagined future paradigm of immersive interactivity. Whether we label it megaband or some other catchy buzzword, developers will continue to long for the future.<>
