book

Time Is Money

by Tammy Everts

June 2016

Intermediate to advanced

110 pages

2h 35m

English

O'Reilly Media, Inc.

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Related skills

Web Performance

Associated roles

Backend developer
Frontend developer
Software developer

Why Should Anyone Care About Web Performance?My Hopes for This BookPerformance Is a Human Issue
Fast Websites and Apps Create Happier UsersHow Fast Do We Expect Web Pages to Be?Our Need for Web SpeedWhy Are We Impatient? Because NeuroscienceSensory memoryShort-term memory and working memoryWhat Is “Flow” and How Does It Relate to How We Use the Web?Questioning Our Assumptions: Do Delays Really Hurt Productivity?What Does This Mean in Web Performance Terms?Web Stress: It’s a ThingMobile Users Feel Web Stress, TooWhat Does This Dissatisfaction with Mobile Performance Look Like at a Neuroscientific Level?Takeaway
Retail Isn’t the Only Vertical Market Affected by PerformanceSlow Time Versus Downtime: Which Hurts Your Business More?Brand PerceptionSlow Web Pages Undermine Brand HealthCase study: Healthcare.gov’s “epic fail” is conflated with the entire Obama administrationConversions and RevenueCase study: Every 1 second of load time improvement equals a 2% conversion rate increase for Walmart.comCase study: Staples.com shaves 1 second from load time, improves conversion rate by 10%Case study: AutoAnything.com cuts page load in half, increases conversion rate by 9%Case study: Mozilla shaves 2.2 seconds from load times, increases download conversions by 15.4%Case study: Obama fundraising platform improved speed by 60% and raised an additional $34 millionCase Study: Intuit Cuts Load Times by More Than Half, Increases Conversions by 14%Who Converts When?Different Pages in the Conversion Funnel Can Have Different Conversion RatesPeople Are More Patient with Specialty Sites Than with General MerchandisersVisitors in Some Countries Are More Patient Than Visitors in OthersShopping Cart AbandonmentCase Study: Impact of Page Slowdown on Shopping Cart AbandonmentPage Views and Bounce RateCase Study: At Google, a 500-millisecond Slowdown Equaled a 25% Decrease in SearchesCase Study: GQ Cuts Load Time by 80%, Grows Traffic by 83%Case Study: At The Financial Times, Page Slowdowns Correlate to up to 11% Decrease in EngagementCase Study: Edmunds.com Shaves 7 Seconds off Load Time, Sees 17% Increase in Page Views and 3% Increase in Ad RevenueCustomer Satisfaction and RetentionCase Study: Impact of Page Slowdown on Returning TrafficGoogle Ranking and Organic Search TrafficThe “Slow” LabelCase study: Smartfurniture.com Accelerates Pages, Enjoys 20% Increase in Organic Search Traffic (Plus More Sales!)Mobile MattersCase Study: Measuring the Impact of Page Slowdowns on Mobile MetricsTakeaway
Employee SatisfactionSlow Performance Hurts MoraleConsumer Web Applications Have Raised the Bar for PerformanceBandwidthPage Bloat (or, When Can We Expect the Average Web Page to Hit 3 MB?)Case study: Wikipedia Improves Load Times by 66%, Radically Cuts Back on New Server CostsCase study: Hydro-Québec Reduced Download Times by 90%, Increased Adoption Rate of New Engineering ProcessesCase study: Netflix Saw a 43% Decrease in Its Bandwidth Bill After One Simple OptimizationCase study: Shopzilla Decreased Load Times by 5 Seconds, Reduced Infrastructure by 50%Case study: Hilton Speeds Internal App, Resulting in Bandwidth Savings, Greater Customer Morale, and Employee SatisfactionTakeaway
What Is Latency—And Why Should You Care About It?Network Infrastructure (or, Why More Bandwidth Isn’t Enough)Do Network Improvements Actually Make Web Pages Load More Quickly?How Many People Actually Have Access to Faster Networks?ServersLoad Balancers and ADCsContent Delivery Networks (CDNs)Frontend Optimization (FEO)Mobile OptimizationPerformance MeasurementSynthetic performance measurementReal user monitoring (RUM)Will Browser Evolution Save Us?Takeaway
How Can We Better Understand the Intersection Between Performance, User Experience, and Business Metrics?What Impact Does Web Performance Have on Customer Lifetime Value?Are Site Owners Optimizing the Right Pages?Are We Measuring the Right Things?How Fast Is Fast Enough?STEP 1: MeasureSTEP 2: CorrelateSTEP 3: MonitorSTEP 4: OptimizeSTEP 5: RepeatHow to Create a Culture of Performance in Your BusinessBuild your caseBenchmark your siteCommunicate your performance goalsIdentify performance champions within your companyTakeaway

Overview

If you want to convince your organization to conduct a web performance upgrade, this concise book will strengthen your case. Drawing upon her many years of web performance research, author Tammy Everts uses cases studies and other data to explain how web page speed and availability affect a host of business metrics. You’ll also learn how our human neurological need for quick, uncomplicated processes drives these metrics.

Ideal for managers, this book’s case studies demonstrate how Walmart, Staples.com, Mozilla, and other organizations significantly improved conversion rates through simple upgrades. Find out why happy customers return, while frustrated users can send your metrics—and your domain—into a tailspin.

You’ll explore:

What happens neurologically when people encounter slow or interrupted processes
How page speed affects metrics in retail and other industries, from media sites to SaaS providers
Why internal applications are often slower than consumer apps, and how this hurts employee morale and productivity
Common performance problems and the various technologies created to fight them
How to pioneer new metrics, and create an organizational culture of performance