The user base is getting broader all the time as mainstream users get online. Of course, there are many technologies to deliver faster bandwidth, and Bell Labs has already demonstrated the ability to shoot a terabit per second down an optical fiber. Unfortunately, these technologies will not deliver huge bandwidth increases to the masses any time soon. ADSL and other technologies will give individual users the speed of a T-1 line and better, but this will not happen in large numbers until approximately 2003. This is the kind of user who may have an ISDN line today.
Web design needs to cater to the masses .
Thus, even though high-end users may have ISDN these days, Web design must aim at optimal usability over a 28.8 kbps modem. International users have even slower connections and response times across the oceans will likely get worse over the next few years. For the next five years, the Web will be dominated by users with so slow connections that any reasonable Web page will take much longer to download than the response time limits indicated by human factors research. Thus, the dominant design criterion must be download speed in all Web projects until about the Year 2003. Minimalist design rules.