It is recommended that you keep the download time of your pages as fast as possible. This can be accomplished by minimizing the number of graphics, keeping graphics small, not inserting movie files, not using animated gifs, and minimizing the use of flash presentations. Your web designer will prefer to incorporate these elements because quite frankly they are fun to create and show off his or her abilities.
Your audience however may not have the patience to wait for all the whistles and bells to download. They may become frustrated and exit your site. How big a concern is this?
If you view your site with a high speed connection you may think it is just great. Try to access your site on a computer that has a dial up connection. Then you will sense the frustration that many internet users feel.
According to Nielsen Net Ratings, as of July 2003, 62 percent of home users had dial up connections. In July 2004, this percentage dropped to 49 percent. In July 2005 it was below 39 percent.
While this trending will help the viability of all those slick elements, you still need to consider whether you want to annoy 40 percent of your potential customers.