We’re all—I hope!—well aware that performance is important; it’s great for business and it’s great for our users. But things are still not fast enough. With more and more emerging markets coming online, and more and more apps moving to the web platform, we’re reaching an intersection where connections are getting slower and websites are getting heavier. In this talk, we’ll learn just what these emerging markets mean to us, and how we can begin to move in the right direction.

1. WHY FAST MATTERS
Harry Roberts | infoShare, Gdańsk | May 2017

2. HI, I’M HARRY
Consultant Performance Engineer
Leeds, UK
@csswizardry
csswizardry.com

4. THE TRAINLINE REDUCED
LATENCY BY 0.3 SECONDS […]
AND CUSTOMERS SPENT AN
EXTRA £8.1M A YEAR

5. NETFLIX SAW A 43% DECREASE
IN THEIR BANDWIDTH BILL AFTER
TURNING ON GZIP

6. GQ CUT LOAD TIME BY 80% AND
SAW AN 80% INCREASE IN
TRAFFIC. MEDIAN TIME SPENT ON
THE SITE INCREASED BY 32%

7. WPOSTATS.COM

8. 1. IT WILL MAKE YOU MONEY
2. IT WILL SAVE YOU MONEY
3. IT MAKES USERS HAPPIER

9. IT’S NOT JUST FINANCIAL…

10. — My Buddy Warren
“Sorry I didn’t reply to your email mate… I could see it but
couldn’t open it because the internet out [in Thailand] is s—t.”

11. — Anon
“I am currently at my parents’ place in Rawatbhata,
Rajasthan [India]. Since my parents don’t have a computer
they only consume internet through their
smartphone […] providers which in our town are still 2G.
Right now I have connected my laptop via WiFi hotspot.
Opening Gmail in basic HTML version takes 30s to a minute.”

13. THE NEXT BILLION USERS

14. qz.com/on/the-next-billion

15. csswz.it/2pa7bX0

16. BANGLADESH !
Average connection: 3,634kbps†
14.4% of the country is online*
3.9m broadband subscriptions (2.4 per 100 people)*
133.7m cellular subscriptions (83.4 per 100 people)*

17. 34× MORE MOBILE
THAN BROADBAND

18. INDIA "
Average connection: 3,465kbps†
26% of the country is online*
17.1m broadband subscriptions (1.3 per 100 people)*
1b cellular subscriptions (78.8 per 100 people)*

19. 58× MORE MOBILE
THAN BROADBAND

20. PAKISTAN #
Average connection: 2,508kbps†
18% of the country is online*
1.8m broadband subscriptions (1 per 100 people)*
125.9m cellular subscriptions (66.9 per 100 people)*

21. 70× MORE MOBILE
THAN BROADBAND

22. INDONESIA $
Average connection: 4,543kbps†
22% of the country is online*
2.8m broadband subscriptions (1.1 per 100 people)*
338.4m cellular subscriptions (132.3 per 100 people)*

23. 121× MORE MOBILE
THAN BROADBAND

24. ! " # $
3,537.5KBPS AVERAGE SPEED
20.1% OF PEOPLE ARE ONLINE
1.45% HAVE BROADBAND
90.35% ON CELLULAR

25. %
14,936KBPS AVERAGE SPEED
92% OF PEOPLE ARE ONLINE
37.7% HAVE BROADBAND
125.8% ON CELLULAR

26. &
12,754KBPS AVERAGE SPEED
68.0% OF PEOPLE ARE ONLINE
19.5% HAVE BROADBAND
148.7% ON CELLULAR

27. WHAT DOES THIS TELL US?

28. WE’RE BUILDING FOR A TOTALLY
DIFFERENT PROFILE OF USER

29. HOW FAST IS FAST ENOUGH?

30. HOW FAST IS FAST ENOUGH?
It’s hard to say…
You can run benchmarking
Get a feel for things over time

31. JUST BE FASTER THAN YOUR
NEAREST COMPETITOR…

32. dareboost.com

33. speedcurve.com

34. GETTING THERE

35. STEP 0: WANT A FAST WEBSITE

36. WANT A FAST WEBSITE
Do not underestimate the importance of this step
Things get markedly easier if you actually try
Make sure it’s a business goal/priority
Ensure that people are putting effort into performance

37. STEP 1: UNDERSTAND THE
PROBLEM

38. …PROPERLY UNDERSTAND IT

40. charlesproxy.com

41. IT’S NOT JUST CONNECTION
SPEED ANYMORE…

44. geekaphone.com

45. csswz.it/2pL4MlZ

47. THERE’S NO REPLACEMENT
FOR REAL DEVICES

50. BUILD UP AN IDEA OF
REALISTIC CONDITIONS

51. STEP 2: KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON

52. WHAT DOES THIS SCRIPT DO?
WHICH TEAM IS IN CHARGE OF
THIS THING?
ARE WE EVEN USING THIS?

53. KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON
Other people/teams add things to your site all the time
Tag managers, social widgets, tracking scripts, analytics
Schrödinger effect: measuring/optimising has its own overhead

54. CALL MEETINGS
Work out what everything is
Who is using it
Do they need it
What can you do about it

56. csswz.it/2qdCJzg

57. KNOW YOUR LIABILITIES…

59. Performance » Bottom-Up » Group By Domain

61. IDENTIFYING THIRD PARTIES

65. BEING VULNERABLE

68. ##
# SPoF Spoofing
#
# Point third-party domains at WPT’s blackhole server.
##
72.66.115.13 platform.twitter.com
72.66.115.13 connect.facebook.net
72.66.115.13 fonts.googleapis.com
72.66.115.13 assets.adobedtm.com
72.66.115.13 fast.fonts.net

69. DON’T PRIORITISE
YOUR OWN METRICS OVER
YOUR USERS’ EXPERIENCES

70. STEP 3: MEASURE EVERYTHING

71. HOW DO WE KNOW:
1) WHAT’S WRONG?
2) WHEN IT’S RIGHT?

76. jana.com/insights

81. BUDGETING

82. PERFORMANCE BUDGETS
Basically just monitoring with alerts
After a while, you’ll begin to know how fast you should be
Set budgets and tolerances
Endeavour to stay within those limits

84. Not the most complex site in the world
But fairly typical
Plenty going on
CSSWIZARDRY.COM

92. CLOSING…

93. CLOSING
Care: Actually prioritise, consider, and champion performance
Understand: Your customers, the problem, the landscape
Measure: Everything you can, before and after

94. STATISTICS AND DATA
Tim Kadlec, Tammy Everts
* World DataBank
† Akamai State of the Internet
‡ ITU Measuring the Information Society Report

95. THANK YOU
Harry Roberts
@csswizardry
csswizardry@gmail.com
speakerdeck.com/csswizardry