Why you should optimize all images on your website

Images usually account for the most bytes on a page. Therefore, it is very important for you to optimize your images. The less bytes the images are, the faster your pages will load up. Using the right image optimization is a process you need to take. Be careful when optimizing your images. If you optimize the images too much, the quality of the images may be poor. Also be on the lookout for images that you can replace with CSS effects or web fonts. Any image that you can eliminate or replace with web fonts or CSS effects will help with your page speed.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , ,

Why you should prioritize visible content on your pages

To increase your page speed, try to reduce the size of the above-the-fold content. The above-the-fold content is implying the upper half of the front page of your website that doesn’t require you to scroll down the page to see. Many websites that seem very fast are often just as large as slow websites. They just prioritize the above the fold content so that the site appears to load fast. Users love webpages that show up quickly and this is why you should prioritize visible content on your pages. Always load the above the fold content first. The footer is at the bottom of the page for a reason so it doesn’t make any sense to add many external files or images to your footer. The user will rarely see your footer. Structure your HTML so that it loads the critical above-the-fold content first and reduce the amount of data used by your resources.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , ,

Why you should remove render-blocking JavaScript

External script can cause the parser to wait for the resource to download which can delay the time for the page to render. You should avoid and minimize the use of blocking Javascript, especially external scripts that need to be fetched before they are executed. You can inline small scripts to avoid extra network requests similar to how we optimize CSS delivery. Another solution to this is by making JavaScript asynchronous or by deferring the JavaScript.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , ,

Why you should avoid using plugins such as Flash

To increase your website’s usability, you should avoid the use of special types of web content such as Flash, Java or Silverlight. Sometimes these plugins will cause your website to hang or crash and may also cause security incidents in browsers. Furthermore, many browsers restrict such plugins.

Internet Explorer runs without plugins in Windows UI mode.

Chrome intends to remove most plugins.

Firefox will prompt users before running most plugins.

There are many web technologies that can substitute these plugins now and will not cause your website to hang or crash.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , ,

Why you should configure the viewport on your website

To improve your website’s usability for mobile devices, you should configure the viewport on your website. Simply add this snippet of code into your website’s section:

By doing so, your pages will be optimized well on mobile devices. Viewport controls how the webpage is displayed on a mobile device so that it uses the device’s screen width making it easier to browse and read the content of your pages.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , ,

Why you should adjust size content to viewport

Sometimes you may have content on your page such as an image that has a width that is larger than the device’s width causing the horizontal scroll bar to show up. It is important to adjust the size content to fit within the width of the viewport so that the user does not need to scroll horizontally to see the entire page. You can do this by using relative width sizes such as:
width:100%

Making images and content responsive is one way to improve the usability of your website.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , , , ,

Why you should size tap targets appropriately

We have all experienced a website on our mobile device that had tightly packed links or buttons making it difficult to accurately press on a touchscreen. You may click on one link but it sends you to a link that is next to it that you did not want to go to. This is why you should space your links appropriately so that the user does not click on a link he/she wasn’t aiming for. This also makes it so that the user does not need to zoom in to carefully pick the link they want to go to. Make the important tap targets larger than the ones that are not important. Make sure that there is proper spacing for smaller tap targets. Designing a good user interface will improve the usability of your website tremendously.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , , ,

Why you should use legible font sizes

To improve the usability of your website, you should always use a base font size of 16 CSS pixels. Furthermore, use sizes relative to the base size to define the typographic scale. It is common practice to use a line-height of 1.2em to have the proper vertical space between characters. Lastly, restrict the number of fonts used. Having too many fonts and font sizes can give your page layout a messy look.

Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: , , , ,