User Interface Performance Criteria for Web Designers and Front-End Developers

The basics. There are several performance-related issues that most likely are already known to all designers and front-end developers. These include recommendations for: performing the minimum possible number of requests; image optimization; Placing stylesheets directly in the source document, and more precisely in its element; the location of the scripts to the closing tag of the body of the document; minimizing javascript and css code; etc. Observing these basic principles you will already be on the right path to increasing the speed of interaction with your users, however, this is not all, not all. It is also very important to remember that despite all the headaches that browsers provide in our daily work activities, they are incredibly reasonable. They take on a huge part of your optimization work. For this reason, most of the knowledge of performance issues is related to understanding how the browser behaves in certain situations and why it does so. This knowledge will allow you to use the abilities of the browser with maximum efficiency. In principle, the lion’s share of the science of web performance comes down to a simple understanding, manipulating and exploiting what the browser is already doing for us. Styles on top, bottom scripts. Continue reading →