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I have a feeling that most of those searches could be answered by, "It's because you're on an unreliable internet connection".

by pubby 13y ago

10098 13y ago
Yes, but the fact that most websites these days have to load seven dozen javascripts and CSS stylesheets to become usable probably doesn't help either
- throwaway2048 13y ago
  the real killer here is scripts that load scripts, often several layers deep, and a blocking load and a round trip each time....
  - jmpe 13y ago
    Google groups comes to mind. It's not uncommon to have to wait several seconds before you can read the text, and then it all collapses and you need to fish for the right post.
- josteink 13y ago
  Add to that Webkit's retarded decision not to render any text at all if the web-page uses custom fonts. The reasoning behind this is a wish to avoid annoying or "unestethical" flicker from one font to another once the font has loaded. That's great if you're on 10mbps or more. Now put yourself on a 64kbps barely functioning link on the metro, you have DLed the 800bytes of article text you really want read 5 minutes ago but you're still waiting for that one special font which webkit requires to be able to see anything. And that wont fully load until you're off the metro. I tell you: Lesser things can drive a otherwise reasonable person completely mad. Don't use custom fonts on any mobile stylesheet ever. Thanks.
Joeri 13y ago
Shouldn't we then build sites with that assumption in mind? For example, why is It that almost no site uses appcache, when it is a way of ensuring that resources are already local and the only network traffic is the truly essential part? Why do we care about retina imagery, when it is obvious that the majority of users get a worse experience as a consequence? Why have sites doubled in size in two years time without adding a meaningful percentage in content? These all point to an industry that lacks perspective on their user's actual user experience because they are sitting on a nice fiber line two hops from the server.
- ehsanu1 13y ago
  why is It that almost no site uses appcache, when it is a way of ensuring that resources are already local and the only network traffic is the truly essential part? HTTP caching is fine for that. appcache is more about allowing the site to largely work even after going offline. That's more than most sites need.
- derefr 13y ago
  I believe the canonical answer to that is that even Google Search, the page you'd expect to be the most cacheable bundle of HTML/JS/CSS on the Internet, has to deliver its pages from a "cold-start" more than 60% of the time. Making sure visits 2..N work smoothly won't improve the average user's experience when most of them are on visit 1.

I have a feeling that most of those searches could be answered by, "It's because you're on an unreliable internet connection".

by pubby 13y ago

I have a feeling that most of those searches could be answered by, "It's because you're on an unreliable internet connection".

10098 13y ago

Yes, but the fact that most websites these days have to load seven dozen javascripts and CSS stylesheets to become usable probably doesn't help either

throwaway2048 13y ago
the real killer here is scripts that load scripts, often several layers deep, and a blocking load and a round trip each time....
- jmpe 13y ago
  Google groups comes to mind. It's not uncommon to have to wait several seconds before you can read the text, and then it all collapses and you need to fish for the right post.
josteink 13y ago
Add to that Webkit's retarded decision not to render any text at all if the web-page uses custom fonts. The reasoning behind this is a wish to avoid annoying or "unestethical" flicker from one font to another once the font has loaded. That's great if you're on 10mbps or more. Now put yourself on a 64kbps barely functioning link on the metro, you have DLed the 800bytes of article text you really want read 5 minutes ago but you're still waiting for that one special font which webkit requires to be able to see anything. And that wont fully load until you're off the metro. I tell you: Lesser things can drive a otherwise reasonable person completely mad. Don't use custom fonts on any mobile stylesheet ever. Thanks.

Joeri 13y ago

Shouldn't we then build sites with that assumption in mind? For example, why is It that almost no site uses appcache, when it is a way of ensuring that resources are already local and the only network traffic is the truly essential part? Why do we care about retina imagery, when it is obvious that the majority of users get a worse experience as a consequence? Why have sites doubled in size in two years time without adding a meaningful percentage in content? These all point to an industry that lacks perspective on their user's actual user experience because they are sitting on a nice fiber line two hops from the server.

ehsanu1 13y ago
why is It that almost no site uses appcache, when it is a way of ensuring that resources are already local and the only network traffic is the truly essential part? HTTP caching is fine for that. appcache is more about allowing the site to largely work even after going offline. That's more than most sites need.
derefr 13y ago
I believe the canonical answer to that is that even Google Search, the page you'd expect to be the most cacheable bundle of HTML/JS/CSS on the Internet, has to deliver its pages from a "cold-start" more than 60% of the time. Making sure visits 2..N work smoothly won't improve the average user's experience when most of them are on visit 1.