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Download, streaming or…

di Matteo Penzo
Pubblicato il 10 Marzo 2006

Let us take a moment to consider this question: what is the main problem with Flash-based websites? What would your answer be?

I can imagine what you’re thinking. Honestly, I could bet on it (by the way, why don’t you let me me know if I’ve guessed?). As Jakob himself stated, the main problem is represented by splash pages, also known as INTROs.

Well, I don’t believe that’s true. Not completely, at least.

The problem is certainly very close to the intros. It is close, in fact, to every kind of online content. The problem basically concerns the download and – consequently – a very dreadful thing called “preload”. I am talking about that small square bar whose filling up beats the time of our wait.
A tool that, probably more than any other, has made the dreams of many developers really come true: the illusion of having the power to publish online contents with no need to worry about the size of the files and the downloading times.

Download

Only, in the real world (as well as in the virtual one) things rarely go as planned. Our users will not always sit back and relax while waiting for the download to complete (by the way, have you tried any of the above-mentioned links? J ) When accessing to the preload page, they will not necessarily carry on to the actual website. On the contrary, these pages statistically represent the wider percentage of the so called “exit pages”: the user will often come, get tired of waiting and just go.

Nevertheless, sometimes dreams do come true. On the one hand, it is a truth – as Maurizio Boscarol stated in his article “When is the download too slow?” (Note: italian version only) – that, according to several studies since back in the Eighties, the waiting time an average user is due to spend before leaving or switching to a new task amounts to just a few seconds.

On the other hand, Jared Spool pointed out (as Maurizio himself admits in his article) that this is not always true. In case the user considers the contents particularly relevant, in fact, he will probably accept even a very slow download.

Perception is thus a very relevant point. If – starting from the preloading page - you manage to create great expectations about the downloading contents, your chances to bind the user to your website will increase significantly. In spite of the preload. On this subject, a very functioal mixed technique suggests to replace the preload with some kind of fastly downloadable pastime: a simple game, an introductory text or whatever can entertain the user while the download takes place.
Still, sometimes a complete download is inevitable. Even more significantly, for some RIA it becomes essential for a proper performance of the application; in this case, a very light texual help introducing the application’s functions will do: it will efficiently replace the download bar, capture the user’s attention and, at the same time, work as a training tool leading to an easier use of the program.

Streaming

Streaming is the possibility of “playing sound or video in real time as it is downloaded over the Internet as opposed to storing it in a local file first” (dictionary.com).

Real Audio has historically opened the door to the possibility of enjoying online music and video through streaming, allowing millions of users – considering how slow the connections were at the time, in 1995 – to listen to/watch/ /enjoy online multimedia contents.

Streaming is probably the best downloading technique at our disposal today, turning the idea of accessing to a content with very limited waiting times into a truth.
Unfortunately, though, all that glitters is not gold. And the streaming of contents is strictly limited by the small bandwidth at each user’s disposal. For these reasons, developers need to create contents with different quality levels: two levels at least, considering dial-up and broadband users.

Flash is probably one of the best tools for coupling multimedia and web interactivity. The possibility of combining vector images and video files offers the developers a very wide working field when it comes to define the best dimension and performances of the movie to be viewed through a streaming process.

The bandwidth profiler allows a perfect fine tuning, by showing us the amount of data sent to the client for each frame according to the different modem speeds. A 28.8KBps optimized video stream will work properly on every kind of connection (consider for instance the growing diffusion of GPRS mobile phones and of ADSL connections).

Waterfall Download

The latest downloading technique is probably the one that is due to become the most successful one. It consists of a masterly mix of streaming and download, with the aim of lightening the perception of the dowloading process through controlled streaming flows in succession.

Now, let us proceed in an orderly manner. As promised, we are now back to the idea of perception. Our main goal is “tricking” our user. We need to make him believe that the downloading speed is high, even in case this is not phisically possible.
Well, hypnosis might be a good technique… Uhm, but I’m afraid its use outside the medical field is forbidden in the majority of nations :-) Let us then find an alternative option.

It is has been experimentally proved that the human brain cannot devote the same amount of attenion to different tasks at a time (speaking in terms of information technology, we might say that it works like the old 8bit DOS). Try to think about this: when you try to listen to a couple of different conversations, you only manage to grasp a few excerpts of them. The same thing happens on the web.

As soon as we find ourselves in front of a web page, what we usually do is scan it, searching for something to capture our attention (this theory has been prooved thanks to the use of eye-tracking technologies). While looking for a starting point, all the rest becomes basically invisible to us, as if it did not exist.

So, what is the best strategy?

Once the interface is loaded (supposing that happens quite fastly), we can start sending the contents to our user, according to a priority order (that is to say starting from the most interesting ones). The time the user will devote to reading this stuff can thus be used for the streaming of the remaining content blocks.

The first contents to be downloaded must of course be the lightest ones, so that we can immediately provide the user with something to concentrate on. As the quantity of downloaded objects grows, we can gradually start to widen the downloading times for each block.
As for the UI-based links, a very special care is needed: as they are the first downloaded objects, in fact, their actual contents will be missing for a while. Thus, it is a must not to make them clickable before their contents are completely downloaded, so to prevent the user from waiting invane.
This way - before they even notice - your visitors will find themselves in front of a completely downloaded page, and, even more significantly, they will be left with the impression that the total downloading time corrsponds to the amount of time you devoted to the first tranche of your contents.

During the following visits, the process will get easier and easier. Flash has in fact a very strong caching engine, that will cancel the downloading times in case the data are already stored on the user’s machine.

Of course, you can extend this technique to whole websites. Part of the criticism about the 24/7 Media website was precisely referred to this point. If – thanks to its richness in contents, texts and details - a website can manage to keep the user’s attention on a single page for long enough, all this time (in terms of minutes, not just of seconds) can be devoted to the streaming download of the pages that are most likely to be successively visited by the user.

For all these reasons, a pondered union of streaming and download will notably better your vistors’ user experience. If “the downloading times negatively influence the individual evaluation of the website”, then the Waterfall Download technique will positively affect the opinion of your users about your website and its contents.