Bootstrapping Progressive Web Apps with amp-install-serviceworker
August 18, 2016, by Ruadhán O'Donoghue
So you’re interested in the super-fast load times that AMP web pages offer, and you’re titillated by the rich, native-like experiences and functionality that Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) can deliver! How do you provide a seamless and instantaneous bridge between the two? Why, with <amp-install-serviceworker> of course! In this article we take a look at... Read More
Why the performance gap is getting wider
August 11, 2016, by Pawel Piejko
In a recent presentation Google’s web performance engineer Ilya Grigorik talked about building fast and resilient web apps. He pointed out that today network speed, memory, and CPU performance are all highly variable no matter what device or region. Looking at the entire spectrum of smartphones available, the performance gap between low-end and high-end is wider than ever... Read More
Apple losing share, Samsung and Huawei growing in Q2 2016 (new report)
August 10, 2016, by Pawel Piejko
Q2 2016 wasn’t great for Apple in terms of web traffic share, according to the newly released Mobile Web Intelligence Report, published by device intelligence provider DeviceAtlas. Apple lost in 18 out of 20 countries we analysed, including the largest markets such as UK (-10%), Germany (-6%), and USA (-4%). Get the new report to... Read More
The web performance impact of third-party libraries
August 3, 2016, by ronan
In many ways the ease with which one can include third-party libraries in a web page is a testament to both the design of the web and extraordinarily rich and open ecosystem around it. With a few third-party services you can transform a static HTML page into a rich interactive experience with comments, media, analytics,... Read More
Transcoders – the technology we love to hate that will never go away
July 27, 2016, by ronan
Many years ago I remember a Google product manager saying that his product, the Google mobile transcoder, was the one product that everyone wished would go away... Read More
Mobile UX: device-targeting and conversion rate optimization
July 26, 2016, by Ruadhán O'Donoghue
Much is made of the impact that speed has on conversion rates on the web. It’s a message that has become increasingly important in recent years, as mobile penetration rates have soared. Much less has been made of the effect of device-targeted UX on conversions. It’s well known that conversion rates are lower on smartphones... Read More
How to build an animated loading spinner
July 5, 2016, by Stephen Delaney
Loading spinners are a great way to provide user feedback during waiting periods. This can signal to a user that your website has not crashed and is processing information. The original way to create loading spinners for the web was by using animated GIFs. Animated GIFs can have weight issues. This is due to the... Read More
Mobile-friendliness 101: How to build a fixed navigation bar
June 24, 2016, by Ruadhán O'Donoghue
Fixed navigation bars, or “sticky” navbars, are a very common design pattern. They allow the visitor to access the main site features very quickly since they are always visible, wherever the user is on the site or page. On the other hand, some would argue that they can take up too much space unnecessarily on... Read More
Google’s new mobile-friendliness test tool: How it gets it right this time
June 16, 2016, by Ruadhán O'Donoghue
In case you missed it, Google just launched another tool to test the mobile-friendliness of your website. The company now has a number of testing tools aimed at promoting good mobile web best practices such as keeping page weight down and ensuring quick render times. The other tools you might be familiar with are the... Read More
A page weight reference for the web – the 1 MB website
June 1, 2016, by ronan
“Every line is the perfect length if you don’t measure it.” — Marty Rubin In engineering disciplines it’s very important to have fixed frames of reference to enable easy comparison of results. In the web developer community we already have many page weight measuring tools such as our own mobiReady and WebPagetest.org. So we have the weighing... Read More
