Above Create fast and frictionless web experiences with web.devThere aren’t enough time and resources
put into developing and designing
mobile-first experiences. It’s all about
getting your user to the core product
value as quickly as possible. When this
isn’t apparent, it can generate negative
brand connotations – like frustration- that stick in consumers’ minds. As
humans we’re more inclined to remember
bad experiences than talk about the good.
Which is all the more reason to engage
people from the very first tap.
We’ve entered an age of instant
gratification and need to assist our
customers more. Having worked with
multiple clients on transforming their
websites, it’s safe to say that there’s
room to grow. User research backs this
up: we know that only a third of users
believe all brands are helpful on mobile
sites. So what needs to be optimised?
What should developers take to be the
starting point in assisting users on this
modern web journey?
When it comes to mobile UX, speed and
ease of use are time and time again the
two areas our customers tell us they care
about the most. First impressions matter
and that begins with performance,
essentially how quickly your site’s visible
content loads and becomes interactive.
If your site doesn’t load fast enough you
simply can’t compete.
When we look a bit deeper into user
behaviour and try to understand why
performance matters, investigating what
results we get from different web pages’
performance, we see bounce rates are
lower the faster the page renders. This
makes a lot of sense seeing as we all can
relate to feeling some level of anxiety
if we aren’t experiencing near-instant
page loads. Mobile development should
start by focusing on prioritising contentthat matters the most in the primary
viewport. The ‘speed index’ is something
to pay particular attention to, as well as
the site’s first contentful paint and ‘time
to interactive’. Audit your site and set
concrete web performance goals.
The ultimate resource for developers of
all backgrounds to learn, create and solve
on the web is web.dev. It’s meant to notonly educate developers but help them
apply what they’ve learned to any site
they work on (https://web.dev/).
A few performance benchmarks to get
started with might be:O Speed Index should be less than
3000ms
O First contentful paint is less than two
seconds
O Time to interactive is less than five
seconds
O Provide seamless transitions between
pagesIn creating the smoothest web
experience, you want to ensure your site
is pretty much jank-free! Historically,
the web’s reach has outstripped its
engagement, which has led to suboptimal
business results. Despite the increase
in volume of best practice guidelines,
legacy websites or ‘traditional’ web
experiences have typically provided far
from delightful experiences.
Unfortunately, sites continue to ship
bloated code. In fact, 40 per cent of
brands who optimise speed revert back
to the old ways of shipping heavy code
on the site within six months. In my
experience of working at Google with
some designers and developers, teams
are often siloed and sometimes unaware
of the performance consequences of their
design decisions. There is a need to define
what ‘speed’ looks like and everyone
should share in that vision – marketers
included. JavaScript and large image files
typically are the main culprits for slowing
down the critical rendering path. This
should be avoided at all costs. But if we
look at the web, JavaScript and image files
are steadily increasing.
Qualities of the modern web are
that it is light, fast, smooth and highly
engaging. While an attempt to build
a better web experience is daunting,
delivering on this really isn’t impossible.Compelling, fast and
smooth
If you find yourself struggling to build
or optimise fast web pages, there may
be an alternative solution for you as a
developer. Why not turn to an open-There is a need
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‘speed’ looks like
and everyone should
share that vision
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