Avoid using intro animations that impede users from accessing the homepage of a site. Oftentimes the same content that is in an intro movie could easily be embedded in a traditional HTML homepage and stream in the animation after the rest of the page has loaded. Comment on this Tip Use cookies to remember preferences Cookies can be a very helpful way to increase usability. A cookie is a small text file that a Web server can send to the user's browser. The browser stores this file for the server to request later.
Most Web servers use cookies to store preferences for a site, or the contents of shopping carts.
Comment on this Tip Run intro only once Set a cookie at the end of an intro animation to indicate that the user has already seen the intro. Next time the user comes back, have the site search for that cookie value and redirect them to the next page of the site. On the destination page make a link to provide the user the opportunity to play the intro animation if they so choose. Comment on this Tip Bandwidth profiling Set a cookie value based on the speed of a user's connection. Setting the cookie can be part of the pre-loader.