2015 posts about web page bloat

July and July 2015 posts:

http://product.voxmedia.com/2015/5/6/8561867/declaring-performance-bankruptcy

https://mondaynote.com/news-sites-are-fatter-and-slower-than-ever-1dc7adebfc90#.q6gxa883u

http://digiday.com/publishers/washington-post-cut-page-load-time-85-percent/

The result: The Post has reduced its “perceived completeness time” — which it defines as the time it takes a page to appear complete to readers — to 1.7 seconds — an 85 percent performance increase compared to the previous iteration of the page. Unlike “load time,” which details how long it takes for every element on a page to load, perceived load time measures what a reader actually sees, making it a more useful metric, according to Franczyk.

Hah! No frigging way. Perceived completeness may be more useful for the publishers' IT department when they present their great achievements to other departments, but sorry, that's an invalid measurement for users, in my opinion.

Fully loaded includes every bit of crap that gets downloaded to users' computers (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone, shoe). All that crap can bog down older CPUs and create a clunky UX.

And while perceived completeness has been achieved, the UX may be disrupted by the additional download of the crapware (ads, useless javascript, images that are unnecessarily large).

Perceived completeness is IT's version of funny money and fraudulent politics.

More from that story:

The Post was far from alone in this. Many publishers have crammed their pages with network ad tags and third-party plug-ins to maximize traffic and revenue, slowing load times. This approach to performance is jarring.

July 2016 info:

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160712_K8_QXJ/

www.theverge.com/2016/7/11/12153370/gochat-pokemon-go-chat-app-jonathan-zarra-interview

From: Dulles, VA - Chrome - Cable
7/12/2016, 9:57:31 AM

First View Fully Loaded:
119.491s !!!???
311 requests
3,885 KB
Cost: $$$$$

41.6% of the bytes were Flash-related !!!???
27.9% of the bytes were JavaScript
4.6% was HTML
6.4% was CSS

Except for tiny stories, I wonder if a good rule for a website would be for the CSS to be smaller than the HTML.

The WaPo speed is "decent" relatively speaking when compared to other media sties. With JavaScript disabled in a desktop browser, a WaPo page loads instantly, like a static HTML page with no JavaScript.

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160712_Z2_RN6/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/07/12/the-deadliest-weapon-against-donald-trump-his-own-words/

From: Dulles, VA - Chrome - Cable
7/12/2016, 10:12:23 AM

First View Fully Loaded:

12.073s
254 requests
2,579 KB
Cost: $$$$$