How long until an old website visitor sees new web design?

Given that there are no cache settings in the HTML page, how long until an old website visitor see a new website design without force refresh?

How long before a website visitor sees a new website design without force refresh?

Assumption: There are no cache settings in the HTML page

It depends on the browser cache settings.

Note:

• The browser settings described below can be temporarily overridden using the appropriate "Refresh" or "Forced Refresh" commands.

IE

There are four options under Check for newer versions of stored pages:

• Every visit to the page:

  When you return to a page you viewed previously, Internet Explorer should check to see whether the page changed since you last viewed it. If the page has changed, Internet Explorer displays the new page and stores it in the Temporary Internet Files. Note that selecting this option can slow down browsing between pages you have already viewed.

• Every time you start Internet Explorer:

  When you view a Web site that you have visited before in the same Internet Explorer session, Internet Explorer uses the cached temporary Internet files instead of downloading the page. If you press F5 or click Refresh, Internet Explorer downloads the page.

• Automatically (Internet Explorer 5 and later only):

  This is the same as the previous setting, but with a logic algorithm to understand the habits of Web page behavior. This setting specifies that when you return to a page you viewed previously, Internet Explorer should not check to see whether the page has changed since you last viewed it.

  If you select this setting, Internet Explorer checks for new content only when you return to a page that you viewed in an earlier session of Internet Explorer or on an earlier day. Over time, if Internet Explorer determines that images on the page are changing infrequently, it checks for newer images even less frequently.

• Never:

  Internet Explorer does not check the Web server for newer content.

Source How Internet Explorer cache settings affect Web browsing

Mozilla

Netscape (all versions since 6.0)
Mozilla Suite (all versions)
Phoenix (all versions)
Firebird (all versions)
Firefox (all versions)
Thunderbird (all versions)
Minimo (all versions)
SeaMonkey (all versions) 

The preference browser.cache.check_doc_frequency controls this:

• 0

  Check for a new version of a page once per session (a session starts when the first application window opens and ends when the last application window closes).

• 1

  Check for a new version every time a page is loaded.

• 2

  Never check for a new version - always load the page from cache.

• 3

  Check for a new version when the page is out of date. (Default)

Source Browser.cache.check doc frequency

Chrome

Chrome caches pages unless it has been told not to.

To disable the cache see How to disable browser cache in Chrome

What does "out of date" mean, where does it get the date reference?

Browsers will usually get this information through HTTP headers sent with the page.

For example, the Last-Modified header tells the browser how old the page is. A browser can send a simple HEAD request to the page to get the last-modified value. If it's newer than what the browser has in cache, then the browser can reload it.

Source How does the browser know a web page has changed?, answer by Seth

Further Reading

• Optimizing content efficiency: HTTP caching