I hoped it was temporary. I was hoping that 2015 will be a year of productivity . I was wrong. The average webpage weight increased by 7.5% in five months , exceeding 2Mb. For this, you need three 3.5-inch double-density floppy disks!

According to the HTTP Archive report for May 15, 2015 , statistics collected on nearly half a million web pages are:

technology	end of 2014	May 2015	an increase
HTML	59Kb	56Kb	-five%
CSS	57Kb	63Kb	+ 11%
Javascript	295Kb	329Kb	+ 12%
Images	1,243Kb	1,310Kb	+ 5%
Flash	76Kb	90Kb	+ 18%
other	223Kb	251Kb	+ 13%
Total	1,953Kb	2,099Kb	+ 7.5%

The greatest growth is observed among CSS, JavaScript, other files (mostly fonts) and, unexpectedly , in Flash. Average number of requests per page:

• 100 files in total (there were 95)
• 7 files with styles (there were 6)
• 20 javascript files (was 18)
• 3 files with fonts (there were 2)

Images remain the biggest problem, accounting for 56 requests and accounting for 62% of the total page weight.

And in the end, remember that this is the average data. Many sites weigh significantly more.
')

We kill the web!

A little theatrical, but still there is at least someone who finds 2Mb acceptable? These are public viewing sites - no action games or heavyweight applications. Some may use a client framework , which may give a larger look to a 'separate' page, but there must be a minority of such sites.

The situation is even worse for a third of users with mobile devices . Ironically, but a 2MB responsive site will never be considered responsive on a slower device with a limited and possibly expensive mobile connection.

In the past, I blamed developers , although there are several technical justifications for page weight reduction. Today, I draw attention to customers: they make the web too complicated .

My clients want to design software and develop views, because they want to realize their own vision. They have innovative ideas on which you can earn millions - as soon as each of the 1001st "vital" features will be implemented in the code. And no matter how big the project, the client always wants more. They:

1. mistakenly believe that more functionality will attract more customers;
2. make your developer better justify the cash costs;
3. nothing better can come up with.

Functional strategies, such as “release earlier, release more often,” are interpreted incorrectly or are completely rejected.

What is the result? 2MB pages filled with inappropriate junk, lots of advertising, intrusive social media widgets, poor-quality implementations of native interfaces, as well as pop-up windows that cannot be closed on small screens.

But we are inferior to the requirements of customers.

Even if you are not inferior, most developers are inferior - and it hurts everyone.

We continue to give preference to functionality instead of performance. Add some nonsense is easy and it makes the customer happy. But users don't like interacting with the web; they crave native mobile apps and Facebook Instant Articles . Moreover, the developers know that this is not correct: the Web against native applications: let's admit defeat .

Apple vs Microsoft approach

It is difficult to argue with a client who offers a fee for another set of stupid features. Customers focus more on their needs than on the needs of their users. More advertising on the page gives more revenue. Demonstration of obsessive pop-up gives more registrations. It is better to present 20 products than 10. These methods work until a certain point, but as soon as you cross the line of acceptability, users will leave the site. What do clients instinctively do when income falls? They add more stuff .

Creating an interaction experience for an unknowing user along with improved performance always goes to the last plan. Perhaps you could highlight this by discussing the following two approaches to creating interaction experiences ...

Historically, Microsoft has developed software with a committee. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about functionality. Pros: Microsoft software provides every conceivable opportunity and is very well configurable. Cons: people use only a part of this power, and it can also become too difficult - for example, seventeen ways to turn off in Vsita or an obscure dialog box with Internet options.

Apple has a more dictatorial approach, in which a relatively small number of people make decisions. The interfaces are elegant and minimalist, they contain only those features that are considered to be completely necessary. Pros: Apple software can be considered simple and elegant. Cons: try to convince Apple to add a certain feature that you need, I wish good luck.

None of the approaches is completely wrong, but which company has achieved great success in recent years? Most users seek a simple interaction experience: applications must work for them — and in no other way. Simplicity wins.

Ask your customers what kind of company they would like to become. Then offer to improve the product, focusing on the frequent needs of users, getting rid of rarely used functionality and with priority performance.

2015 may be a year of performance

The web is amazing. Applications are cross-platform, work anywhere in the world, do not require installation, automatically back up data and allow you to quickly start working together. The data volume of these pages has already become larger and heavier than the native installers of the applications they are intended to replace. 2MB of web page crossed the line of acceptability.

If we do nothing, the crisis of redundancy will continue. Fighting for simplicity is not easy: losing weight is much harder than buying it. Withstand a little pain and you will have a healthy future:

• use caching-friendly tools, reduce HTTP requests, minimize the useful amount of data and remove unnecessary components - see the Detailed Guide to Reducing Page Weight
• Think about Chris Ruppel’s idea of slow Thursdays when bandwidth is limited and you are working with your site / application under the same conditions as your users

It is time to give priority to performance.