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I'm trying to choose between two designs for a military allowance calculator I'm developing. You can view my two choices here: http://imgur.com/a/qRmDX

My main question involves the second design: Do you think the large google map will slow down the page load time? Which design do you guys prefer, considering user interface as the top priority?

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It being just the choice of these two, I am unsure what insight we here can add other than voting which one to pick. – KMSTR Oct 7 '12 at 5:08
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A decision like this a) should be based on a nuanced understanding of what your audience want and b) should usually be an in depth discussion with the designer, discussing each detail and listening to their reasons. If you think strangers on the internet can do this better than you can based on just looking at two images, it's the least of your problems... – user568458 Oct 7 '12 at 9:55
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For example, based purely on aesthetics, I like the top half of the second one and the presentation of the "xxx + xxx = xxx" of the first one. But I'm not your target audience. The question should be, "What works best for military people looking to calculate BAH?" – user568458 Oct 7 '12 at 10:04

closed as too localized by Scott, KMSTR, user568458, Yisela♦, e100 Nov 1 '12 at 12:10

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

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This isn't the answer you are looking for and I couldn't put it in comments because my rep is still low but I think this question belongs to UX.stackexchange.
Also, when it comes to an image slowing down the loading time of the page, many factors might intervene and @user568458 just pointed out the most crucial aspect of it in your case. Plus the only way for you to figure this out will not be by relying on a word from the internet but actually by doing proper testing!
As for the preference of design, a first step would be to show your target audience what you've got and interact with them!

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Thanks for the tips. I'll try out UX.stackexchange – caseym Oct 8 '12 at 7:36
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For the Google Maps question: The size of the google map won't affect the load time of the page. Google maps sit in iframes and are loaded from Google's servers asynchronously after the main page. The worst things that could happen from having a larger iframe containing more content are:

  • a slightly longer moment where the iframe's content is not fully loaded - but it's a background element anyway, so users' attention will be on the page content and their use of the site won't be slowed down.
  • slightly higher bandwidth usage. If this was the design for a mobile site intended to be used frequently on the go, or if it was targeted at a market (e.g. 3rd world) with access only to slow connections, this might be a concern - but that doesn't look like a factor here.
  • slightly longer before the Javascript window onload event happens. Depending on how the site is coded up, this could result in a very small (less than a second) increase in the time before some interactive elements are live. This is relevant if you want your users to hit a button within a few seconds of the page loading, or, if the design hinges on a javascript event (true for some responsive sites, but it's a sign that something has gone wrong if this is essential for a design). It doesn't look like these would be factors here.

Bottom line - any difference it made would be very small, and wouldn't slow the loading of the main site content. But like everything else in a site it's something that should be tested. If you're very concerned, consider asking on a site that is more technically oriented (webmasters.stackexchange or stackoverflow.com?)

As for the design choosing question, see comments.

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Thank you for the advice! – caseym Oct 8 '12 at 7:36

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