I liked this article a lot, so please don't think I'm being negative. The only thing that I sort of disagreed with was "we should optimize for the most likely s

I liked this article a lot, so please don't think I'm being negative. The only thing that I sort of disagreed with was "we should optimize for the most likely scenario" I disagree. 1) optimization is fragility 2) the extremes will inform the average The "most likely scenario" is a visitor with a fast-enough Internet connection that a few hundred ms more won't matter. So we should build for the extremes? Well, that's a little extreme (see what I did there?). But if you point to stats like "5-9% hit the back button...", that is not the most likely scenario...it's, well, 5% to 9% of the scenarios... There's a documentary called Objectified that examined this with physical products, check it out. I think when developing and/or designing for speed, the "most likely" person is the least of your worries. The people still rocking slow dial-up connections are the ones who will be impacted...design and develop with them in mind. One example from Objectified was a toothbrush. When they targeted extremes and made a handle that musclebound roidheads, people with MS, and old people could easily use (i.e. the extremes of human mobility), the "average" consumer was more than taken aware of and the extremes were satisfied. If you develop and design for the slow browsers and the wonky old Internet connections, or at least keep them in mind, the normal folks will be more than satisfied (ideally). Sorry to be so picky it just caught my eye and I felt compelled to chime in whilst waiting for school to end...