PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE

MEASUREMENTS

As web pages continue to grow in size and users expect ever-faster-loading pages, measurements that accurately reflect the users experience
are critical to understanding web performance. This had led to what some may call the search for the elusive unicorn metric. Many people
with an interest in web performance are looking for a metric that will accurately measure page performance and user experience. This simply
doesnt exist today, and it might never exist, but that wont stop us from searching for it.
It isnt only about how fast all the elements on the page load, but ratherhow the human user perceivesthe page load. I dont care how long it
takes all the analytics and tracking widgets to load, I care about when the information I am looking for is available.
According toJakob Nielsen, there are three main time limits to consider when it comes to web performance and user perception.
0.1 second limit for users to feel that user interface items in the page can be manipulated
1 second limit for users to feel they can navigate without having to wait for the computer
10 seconds limit to keep a users attention
Users need to feel something is happening on the page to stay engaged. Delays over one second are noticeable. A page has to have some
sort of noticeable change in less than a second for a user to not be frustrated. In a previous post I wrote aboutobjective vs subjective time
these thresholds need to be considered more for subjective rather than objective timings, but for the most part we focus on objective
measures.

Traditional web performance metrics such as time to first byte (TTFB) or page load time (PLT) are commonly used to create baselines for
determining how fast a page loads. Unfortunately these metrics do not provide insight into the users perception. TTFB is the time it takes
between issuing a request for a resource and receiving the first byte of content. When the first byte of content is received by the browser, the
user is still looking at a blank screen (or the previous page they were on). This metric does not help determine how the user is actually
perceiving the page, as they still dont even know that data is starting to be received. On the opposite end of the spectrum, PLT measures how
long it takes for every element on the page to load even if they are below the fold or otherwise invisible to the end user. Users may navigate
away from a page before it has fully loaded, so this isnt helpful in determining if a user perceives a page as being slow.
Whenever I read a paper or report on how page load times are improved by a certain percentage, I immediately look to see what metric is
being reported. In the majority of instances, it is page load time. This disappoints me.
Luckily, user-centric measurements have emerged and are becoming more the norm than the exception in the web performance community.
Instead of measuring PLT or TTFB, measurements such as start render,Speed Index,critical resources index, andPerceptual Speed
Indexhave come to the forefront. These measurements aim to give us insight into how users perceive page load, which is more important than
the actual milliseconds or seconds it took for the document to complete.
START RENDER
Start render measures the moment when the first item was displayed on the screen its size doesnt matter, nor does its relevance to the end
user. This is when the user is no longer staring at a blank white screen or at the previous screen. Start render is good, but this does not take
into account whether the content displayed is relevant to the end user. There may be something on the page, but the page may still not be
usable to the end user. Referring back to Nielsens considerations, the user still cannot manipulate the UI.

SPEED INDEX
Speed Index was added to WebPagetest in April 2012, as a way of measuring how quickly content above the fold is populated. Speed Index
goes beyond tracking a specific timing milestone in the web application loading process and focuses on items that are most critical to the end
user. Speed Index computes the visual completion of the application-loading process based on pairwise comparisons of pixel histograms from
time lapse video snapshots, such as the snapshots in the strip below.

Essentially each frame of the video is compared with the end frame to estimate how much visual completion has been achieved with respect to
the fully-loaded frame.
CRITICAL RESOURCES INDEX
Critical resources index, developed by Steve Souders, combines two of the main blockers
to rendering, style sheets and synchronous scripts, into a single metric. Measuring these
critical resources as a single metric makes it easier to measure the combined impact on
performance. Critical resources index is reported inHTTP Archive, as one of the metrics
in the Highest Correlation to Render Time charts. Look for the CSS and Sync JS label:

PERCEPTUAL SPEED INDEX

Perceptual Speed Index (PSI) is a complementary measurement to Speed Index that accounts for layout stability. Speed Index answers the
question of how fast did above-the-fold content load? while PSI answers the question how fast did above-the-fold content load without jitter?
Stability includes performance concerns like whether there are multiple reflow and repaints, and whether there is visual interference by pop-up
ads, but can also penalize intended page changes like animated GIFs and auto-running carousels (which some may argueshouldbe
penalized).
You cant improve what you cant measure. But, you also need to make sure you are measuring the right thing. To learn more about this,
download theMeasuring Web Performancewhite paper from ZK Research. Thus far we havent found the unicorn metric/index of web
performance measurements. Maybe one of these metrics can bring us closer to ending the search.
NEXT STEPS
Taking human visual perception into account is a critical factor in estimating the quality of experience of a web application. There is still work to
be done to find measurements that accurately measure user perception of when a page becomes responsive. I look forward to the day when
one of these metrics or possibly another one replace TTFB and page load time.

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