The importance of download speed, for most Web users, has long been established (King 2008). Fast response times foster higher flow states (Skadberg & Kimmel 2004), higher conversion rates (Akamai 2007), higher perceived trustworthiness (Nielsen 1999), and lower user frustration (Ceaparu et al. 2004). But, previous research has also found that differences in gender, age and computer self-efficacy can moderate user priorities. This article explores the differences among men and women in their desire for speed.
Website Optimization
Study: Web Users Prefer Speed Over Customization
Web users want site designs to be both easy to use and helpful, as prior human-computer interaction (HCI) studies have shown. But most such studies haven’t ranked interface design features in achieving these objectives. Since this knowledge can positively impact site design or re-design, this article will ask and answer the question – is there a single interface design feature that maximizes both user goals; usability and utility? If so, how important is this feature compared to others?
Offload Resource Intensive Scripts to Improve Server Performance
In a previous speed tweak we showed how upgrading our web server to a solid state drive and faster processors improved response times by 35% to 50%. With the Web Page Analyzer on the same server, the average response time was 11.87 seconds with typical response times after ramp-up ranging from 23 to 36 seconds. While this was an improvement over the old server, there were still response time and availability issues caused by hosting the analyzer script on the same server. This article shows how offloading a resource intensive script can dramatically improve your server response times.
Average Top 100 Weblog Performance Survey – results of load size analysis of technorati top 100 weblogs compared to top 1000 websites
How do the top 100 weblogs compare with the 1000 most popular websites? What are the differences in size and performance between these two samples? What conclusions can we draw about advertising use between and within the two surveys? To find out, we updated a survey by Pingdom, an uptime monitoring company based in Sweden, who recently analyzed the top 100 blog home pages listed in Technorati for their size, composition, and web site performance. This article summarizes Pingdom’s findings, adds a CSS analysis, compares the top 100 blogs with the top 1000 websites, and offers some advice.
Evolution of the Web from 2000 to 2007 – average web object size quintuples since 2000
The Web has changed dramatically over the past seven years. During that time the Web has moved from a static one-way medium toward a dynamic platform for interactive services such as photo and video sharing portals. In a comparative survey of data traces served over the Web from 2000 and 2007, University of Twente researchers found that the nature of web sites has changed (Sadre and Haverkort, 2008).
O’Reilly Books on Web Performance
There are a number of books published now on Web Performance. Here is a summary of the books available on the topic, mainly from O’Reilly.
Solid-State Drive Web Server Test – upgrade server speed with benchmarking tools
This article shows how response times improved after upgrading to a new dedicated web server with solid-state drives and faster processors. With the increased load due to our free Web Page Analyzer, we realized that a different server configuration may be necessary. We first benchmarked our current server to establish a baseline. Then we tested a faster server to see the improvement in response times. After the upgrade, the web server tested 35% faster. In a future article, we’ll look at moving the resource hungry analyzer tool to a separate server to improve performance for the WebsiteOptimization.com website.
Optimize Drop Shadows – minimize image size with graphic optimization of drop shadow and photoshop
Drop shadows add impact to web graphics, but they also impact file size. You can minimize the resulting file size of palette-based images such as GIFs and PNGs by reducing the complexity of drop shadows. This article shows how to create optimized drop-shadows in Photoshop to minimize the size of web graphics.
The Psychology of Web Performance – how slow response times affect user psychology
Previous research has shown that user frustration increases when page load times exceed eight to 10 seconds, without feedback (Bouch, Kuchinsky, and Bhatti 2000, King 2003)., Newer evidence shows that broadband users are less tolerant of web page delays than narrowband users. A JupiterResearch survey found that 33% of broadband shoppers are unwilling to wait more than four seconds for a web page to load, whereas 43% of narrowband users will not wait more than six seconds (Akamai 2006).
Inline Images with Data URLs – embed graphics inline with data uri scheme
Inline images use the data URI scheme to embed images directly within web pages. As defined by RFC 2397, data URIs are designed to embed small data items as “immediate” data, as if they were referenced externally. Using inline images saves HTTP requests over externally referenced objects.