3 ms·

Even for media focused websites, this 14KB rule is probably still worth following. Not for the whole web page, obviously. But you should still be aiming to max

by phire 4y ago

Even for media focused websites, this 14KB rule is probably still worth following. Not for the whole web page, obviously. But you should still be aiming to maximize the impact of that first 14KB. Ideally you want to deliver enough for the first layout and paint, so that someone can quickly see the frame of the webpage and then you want to minimize the amount of visual changes caused by subsequent data. Ideally the first 14KB should be enough to do the final layout. It might not have any images, but the dimensions of images should he hardcoded in the html or css so the layout won't reflow as the images come in. Maybe it's worth putting in placeholder colors behind the images that complement the general color scheme of the image and make the load less virtually jarring? And if 14KB isn't enough for the final layout, the bytes need to be prioritized for "above the fold", to maximize the chance that any layout changes happen off screen where the user hasn't had time to scroll to yet. This block post is perhaps a little absolutist in it's title. But the advice seems useful for everyone and people shouldn't give up just because there is no way they could possibly make their pages small enough.

johnchristopher 4y ago
Is there number, data, lab test session that proves it's worthwhile ? I sometime feel like these are all KPI detached from conversion but since it can be measured we do measure it.
- soperj 4y ago
  that's what this blog post is about isn't it?
  - johnchristopher 4y ago
    No, it's not. edit: No, it's not. It deals with TCP window but in no way does it deal with customers conversion, retention rates and all those things.
    - alpaca128 4y ago
      > in no way does it deal with customers conversion, retention rates and all those things. Those metrics would only be meaningful if the average visitor knew how fast websites and computers can be, and if there are well-known alternatives to your site. Having standards is preferrable to aiming for mediocrity imho. YouTube probably has decent retention rates but it's a bloated pile of UX hell that people use for a lack of alternatives. Maybe that's why Google manages to make it even worse over time without realising they're digging a second Mariana trench of quality.
      - johnchristopher 4y ago
        > Those metrics would only be meaningful if the average visitor knew how fast websites and computers can be, and if there are well-known alternatives to your site. Having standards is preferrable to aiming for mediocrity imho. Of course visitors don't care about commercial and marketing metrics. They clearly rely on other metrics to decide whether or not visit or stay on a site. And my question still stands: who has numbers or data that show that those 14kb pages perform better in regard to the commercial metrics than heavier pages ? And I mean in the field data, not a synthetic test.
        jsjohnst 4y ago
        > And my question still stands: who has numbers or data that show that those 14kb pages perform better in regard to the commercial metrics than heavier pages ? And I mean in the field data, not a synthetic test. A trivial search will find you tons of heavily reviewed research that shows web page performance directly impacts e-commerce conversion/sales and this is widely known in the industry. This article laid out a solid technical explanation for why staying under 14kb can have substantial improvements in performance. You refusing to see the connection there, or are you disputing it?
        withinboredom 4y ago
        It will vary between industries and target markets. The best thing to do is a/b test it by synthetically giving your customers a slow loading page and seeing how it affects your metrics. I’ve only worked one place that was brave enough to do this and client loading speed was highly correlated to conversion rate.
- wickedsight 4y ago
  You can easily do a very simple test yourself to see whether (and in which cases) this is worthwhile: In your browser, open dev tools, go to the network tab and enable throttling. For fun, set it all the way down to GPRS speed. Next, refresh that blog, you'll nearly instantly see the web page. Then, refresh the HN home page, quite quickly, you'll see the list of articles in a bare-ish HTML page and a little later it becomes pretty when the CSS is loaded. Finally, open any modern news site, since a news site is supposedly text-centric, it should be a fair comparison. I picked CNBC and it took 30 seconds for the first text to become readable. I live in a country with ubiquitous broadband and near full coverage of 4/5G mobile internet, so for my country, this is a non-issue. Because of this, one of our most popular news sites takes nearly a minute to become readable at GPRS speeds. When I visit more rural areas in other European countries, this leads to me being unable to visit most web sites that were made for my country and it's extremely frustrating. Especially if you're in a bind and quickly want to find some information, because Google also takes ages to load over slow internet and is nearly unusable (and so is DDG, in case you want to try an alternative).
  - gonzo41 4y ago
    Have U seen, lite.cnn.com
    - galleywest200 4y ago
      https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/ as well
Abishek_Muthian 4y ago
Even if not media focused, Is 14KB possible with modern web JavaScript frameworks? Asking as someone who builds only text focused web applications with very little vanilla JavaScript if absolutely necessary.

by phire 4y ago

johnchristopher 4y ago

Is there number, data, lab test session that proves it's worthwhile ? I sometime feel like these are all KPI detached from conversion but since it can be measured we do measure it.

soperj 4y ago
that's what this blog post is about isn't it?
- johnchristopher 4y ago
  No, it's not. edit: No, it's not. It deals with TCP window but in no way does it deal with customers conversion, retention rates and all those things.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    > in no way does it deal with customers conversion, retention rates and all those things. Those metrics would only be meaningful if the average visitor knew how fast websites and computers can be, and if there are well-known alternatives to your site. Having standards is preferrable to aiming for mediocrity imho. YouTube probably has decent retention rates but it's a bloated pile of UX hell that people use for a lack of alternatives. Maybe that's why Google manages to make it even worse over time without realising they're digging a second Mariana trench of quality.
    - johnchristopher 4y ago
      > Those metrics would only be meaningful if the average visitor knew how fast websites and computers can be, and if there are well-known alternatives to your site. Having standards is preferrable to aiming for mediocrity imho. Of course visitors don't care about commercial and marketing metrics. They clearly rely on other metrics to decide whether or not visit or stay on a site. And my question still stands: who has numbers or data that show that those 14kb pages perform better in regard to the commercial metrics than heavier pages ? And I mean in the field data, not a synthetic test.
      - jsjohnst 4y ago
        > And my question still stands: who has numbers or data that show that those 14kb pages perform better in regard to the commercial metrics than heavier pages ? And I mean in the field data, not a synthetic test. A trivial search will find you tons of heavily reviewed research that shows web page performance directly impacts e-commerce conversion/sales and this is widely known in the industry. This article laid out a solid technical explanation for why staying under 14kb can have substantial improvements in performance. You refusing to see the connection there, or are you disputing it?
      - withinboredom 4y ago
        It will vary between industries and target markets. The best thing to do is a/b test it by synthetically giving your customers a slow loading page and seeing how it affects your metrics. I’ve only worked one place that was brave enough to do this and client loading speed was highly correlated to conversion rate.
wickedsight 4y ago
You can easily do a very simple test yourself to see whether (and in which cases) this is worthwhile: In your browser, open dev tools, go to the network tab and enable throttling. For fun, set it all the way down to GPRS speed. Next, refresh that blog, you'll nearly instantly see the web page. Then, refresh the HN home page, quite quickly, you'll see the list of articles in a bare-ish HTML page and a little later it becomes pretty when the CSS is loaded. Finally, open any modern news site, since a news site is supposedly text-centric, it should be a fair comparison. I picked CNBC and it took 30 seconds for the first text to become readable. I live in a country with ubiquitous broadband and near full coverage of 4/5G mobile internet, so for my country, this is a non-issue. Because of this, one of our most popular news sites takes nearly a minute to become readable at GPRS speeds. When I visit more rural areas in other European countries, this leads to me being unable to visit most web sites that were made for my country and it's extremely frustrating. Especially if you're in a bind and quickly want to find some information, because Google also takes ages to load over slow internet and is nearly unusable (and so is DDG, in case you want to try an alternative).
- gonzo41 4y ago
  Have U seen, lite.cnn.com
  - galleywest200 4y ago
    https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/ as well

Abishek_Muthian 4y ago

Even if not media focused, Is 14KB possible with modern web JavaScript frameworks? Asking as someone who builds only text focused web applications with very little vanilla JavaScript if absolutely necessary.