11–20 of 36 posts
From the article: "The web definitely has a speed problem due to over-design and the junkyard of tools people feel they have to include on every single web page. However, I don’t agree that the web has an inherent slowness. The articles for the new Facebook feature will be sent over exactly the same connection as web pages. However, the web versions of the articles have an extra layer of cruft attached to them, and t…
I agree with the overall sentiment expressed that web developers can and should do better as it comes to performance. There were a few inaccurate or misleading remarks in the article that I'd like to draw attention to: 1) Guess how those Instant Articles are formatted? HTML. Guess how those articles get to the app? HTTP. This is misleading because it seems to equate pulling in content with loading an article. By load…
When I'm designing a landing page for anything significant (product, movie, whatever), I'm looking for sub-second load times - ideally below 500ms. Why? Because there are tons of studies showing that page load speed makes a huge difference to user experience, retention, CTR, the whole nine yards.
How come bigger media companies, whose expense accounts for team lunch are probable larger than my entire Web budget, fail to learn this?
I'm baffled.
When you control the client you can stop so many unnecessary requests and you can patch sites (GreaseMonkey and Stylish were/are the best extensions) when they arrive.
This is exactly why the web is built as it is; you don't have to take whatever crap is shoved at your browser, you are in control.
This implies it's just a matter of priorities. In fact, it's a matter of cost. The OP admits that what he advocates "isn't easy", technically. That means it's more expensive. More developer hours, more highly-skilled developers, or both.
It is a matter of priorities in the sense that an organization needs to understand what a good product looks like and be willing to spend the money to create a good product, trusting the investment will ultimately be repaid (as the OP argues but is hardly guaranteed). But it's not avoiding "putting developers over customers", in fact they need to be spending more on developers than they are now to get a good product, they need to 'elevate' their developers further, always remembering the ultimate goal is serving users of course.
I agree with the overall sentiment expressed that web developers can and should do better as it comes to performance. There were a few inaccurate or misleading remarks in the article that I'd like to draw attention to: 1) Guess how those Instant Articles are formatted? HTML. Guess how those articles get to the app? HTTP. This is misleading because it seems to equate pulling in content with loading an article. By load…
For what it's worth the Facebook app takes forever to load (like 3 minutes or more) on my 3-year old iPhone 4, while browsing for stuff on Safari stills works reasonably well, bar the odd website which throws a huge advert at you. People would probably advise me to change my phone, to get a newer one, but why should we change our phones every 2 years? Why create more waste? Why spend money uselessly on stuff that sho…
> Your problem is that if you put your developers ahead of your customers, you’ll end up with just the developers. This implies it's just a matter of priorities. In fact, it's a matter of cost. The OP admits that what he advocates "isn't easy", technically. That means it's more expensive. More developer hours, more highly-skilled developers, or both. It is a matter of priorities in the sense that an organization need…
The gist is for me: The speed problem is not inherent to the web; it’s a consequence of what passes for modern web development. Remove the cruft and we can compete again. My guess is, the cruft will not be removed, but will just be sped up with WebAssembly etc. Building a web site that's functional and fast stays an art form that's not accessible to everyone. Native apps are just a quick-&-dirty cop-out from that pro…
WebAssembly won't do anything for the latency delays of a myriad of support files (javascript, CSS, images) which is the key problem for small apps and non-applicatino pages, HTTP2's better handling of multiple files (or for HTTP(S) grouping everything into one minified block) won't help if they are coming from different 3rd parties, ... That is an issue that needs to be addressed by people changing how they currentl…
This article really highlights something that I'm constantly amazed by - just how SLOW major media organisations are prepared to allow their websites to be. When I'm designing a landing page for anything significant (product, movie, whatever), I'm looking for sub-second load times - ideally below 500ms. Why? Because there are tons of studies showing that page load speed makes a huge difference to user experience, ret…
Because they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want a fast website, but they'd rather have ads everywhere and track everything.
This article really highlights something that I'm constantly amazed by - just how SLOW major media organisations are prepared to allow their websites to be. When I'm designing a landing page for anything significant (product, movie, whatever), I'm looking for sub-second load times - ideally below 500ms. Why? Because there are tons of studies showing that page load speed makes a huge difference to user experience, ret…
>How come bigger media companies, whose expense accounts for team lunch are probable larger than my entire Web budget, fail to learn this? Because they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want a fast website, but they'd rather have ads everywhere and track everything.
Aren't the ads chosen and served by third parties, and isn't almost all the tracking done by third parties?
Is the real problem that leading media sites have lost control of the speed of their web pages (or lost control of a significant chunk of it) to tracking and advertising companies such as Google?
I'm not a web developer, and I'm speculating from a position of ignorance, but I'd be interested to know the answer....