The tenth and last (but not the least!) usability mistake in the list of original top 10 usability mistakes in web design by Jakob Nielsen (1996) is overly long download times. Users start losing their interest and patience quite fast when they have to wait more than 10-15 seconds for any reason. Back in good old 90s most internet connections were slow dial-up connections so loading a very big and elaborate web page might take so long that you could make a cup of coffee (and maybe drink it) before loading was finished.
Nowadays connections are usually broadband connections and getting faster almost every year, so one might be tempted to think that this particular usability mistake is not valid any more. Wrong! While connections get faster, also the web pages get bigger, more elaborate and full of all sorts of Flash, Java and Shockwave applets, widgets and kludges that have to be started and loaded. It is unfortunately common having to wait, twiddle thumbs and watch until the progress bar fills up or percentage reaches 100% and site that is entirely Flash-based is loaded. And that can take sometimes even longer than 10-15 seconds. So make sure that your website is not bloated (i.e. not too many pictures in one page), and doesn't have applets that take forever to load and force the users to stop browsing and wait until loading is finished. Even if your content is par excellence, your users don't want to wait for long and might go elsewhere.
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A blog promoting good usability and pointing fingers at bad usability
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