4 ms·

Seconds matter an awful lot to me. If things don't happen fast enough, I end up alt-tabbing to the browser, losing my train of thought, and perhaps wasting a fe

by nicbou 4y ago

Seconds matter an awful lot to me. If things don't happen fast enough, I end up alt-tabbing to the browser, losing my train of thought, and perhaps wasting a few minutes browsing the web. I also work semi-offline a lot. My current internet connection is roughly 100 KBps. The connection in the underground isn't much better. I also work in airports and hotels. These pages that take 10+ seconds to load end up being abandoned. Amazon famously measured how slow pages correlate with lost revenue. You don't really notice this until you use something significantly faster, and you can stay focused on the task much longer. Things just work better. It's like using a sharp knife for the first time.

RedShift1 4y ago
Would you wait for 15 to 20 seconds for an SPA to load, if it's guaranteed to work faster during usage, or have it load in 1 second but be slower while using it?
- fleddr 4y ago
  This implies that the typical SPA, once loaded, is just "there" and can be used rapidly as if it's some offline app. In reality, many of them make a huge amount of fresh network calls on each navigation. Still, it's an interesting question from the user's perspective. Reminds me of the downside of lazily-loaded images on the web. Whilst designed to help people with data constraints, it can have surprising side effects. The anecdote that comes to mind was a rural town in India where inhabitants would visit a particular place for internet access. They'd open a few URLs and just let it download, could take some 20 mins. Next, they'd return to their home to actually look at the pages they downloaded. This usage pattern doesn't work with lazily loaded images, it forces them to scroll and wait beginning to end on every single URL.
- nicbou 4y ago
  It depends on where those 15 seconds fit. If I have to hold onto some thought for 15 seconds, forget it. If I'm loading an IDE or some other tool I'll use all day, it's fine. My bookkeeping software has lots of 1 second delays and it's really annoying.

by nicbou 4y ago

RedShift1 4y ago

Would you wait for 15 to 20 seconds for an SPA to load, if it's guaranteed to work faster during usage, or have it load in 1 second but be slower while using it?

fleddr 4y ago
This implies that the typical SPA, once loaded, is just "there" and can be used rapidly as if it's some offline app. In reality, many of them make a huge amount of fresh network calls on each navigation. Still, it's an interesting question from the user's perspective. Reminds me of the downside of lazily-loaded images on the web. Whilst designed to help people with data constraints, it can have surprising side effects. The anecdote that comes to mind was a rural town in India where inhabitants would visit a particular place for internet access. They'd open a few URLs and just let it download, could take some 20 mins. Next, they'd return to their home to actually look at the pages they downloaded. This usage pattern doesn't work with lazily loaded images, it forces them to scroll and wait beginning to end on every single URL.
nicbou 4y ago
It depends on where those 15 seconds fit. If I have to hold onto some thought for 15 seconds, forget it. If I'm loading an IDE or some other tool I'll use all day, it's fine. My bookkeeping software has lots of 1 second delays and it's really annoying.