Fast is a
Feature

11 mentions of speed in
Apple iPhone 6 keynote

What does this mean for
mobile journalism?

You have less than
10 seconds
“A 10-second delay will often make
users leave a site immediately.”
- Jakob Nielsen

On mobile you have
1 second
“Our research says page load times
above one second interrupt user flow
of thought.”
- Google

Put something on the
screen
in 1 second

1000 ms
- 200 ms of 3G network latency
- 200 ms of domain name lookup
- 200 ms of HTTP request loop
400 ms

You really only have
400 milliseconds

Average site load
on mobile is
7 seconds

Text
Images
Video
Interactives
Context
Ads
3rd party buttons (social)
‘Read more’
Comments

Easy, just build a
native app

native apps are fast
but hard to find

Search
20% of Google searches are on mobile
Google tracks page load time and uses it as
a signal

Social
Is
Mobile
is
Social In-App Browsers

Facebook thinks your
pages are too slow…
and they’ll be happy to
host your content!

Making data-informed
trade-offs
(building products)

How fast is Vox Media on
mobile?
Never fast enough

15 seconds
first load
9 seconds
repeat load
-webpagetest.org

5 seconds first
load
1 second
repeat load
-webpagetest.org

Performance Dashboard
Make speed a company-wide
metric like
unique visitors

Inline Performance Metrics
Measure. Optimize. Test.

Dedicated performance
team:
3 engineers

Fast Cars
Need Good Drivers
Speed isn’t just about
technology, it’s about being
quick to deliver the news

Thanks!
Trei Brundrett
Chief Product Officer
Vox Media
@clockwerks