Web Performance in Action

Summary

Web Performance in Action is your companion guide to making websites faster. You’ll learn techniques that speed the delivery of your site’s assets to the user, increase rendering speed, decrease the overall footprint of your site, as well as how to build a workflow that automates common optimization techniques.

About the Technology

Nifty features, hip design, and clever marketing are great, but your website will flop if visitors think it’s slow. Network conditions can be unpredictable, and with today’s sites being bigger than ever, you need to set yourself apart from the competition by focusing on speed. Achieving a high level of performance is a combination of front-end architecture choices, best practices, and some clever sleight-of-hand. This book will demystify all these topics for you.

About the Book

Web Performance in Action is your guide to making fast websites. Packed with “Aha!” moments and critical details, this book teaches you how to create performant websites the right way. You’ll master optimal rendering techniques, tips for decreasing your site’s footprint, and technologies like HTTP/2 that take your website’s speed from merely adequate to seriously fast. Along the way, you’ll learn how to create an automated workflow to accomplish common optimization tasks and speed up development in the process.

What’s Inside

• Foolproof performance-boosting techniques
• Optimizing images and fonts
• HTTP/2 and how it affects your optimization workflow

About the Reader

This book assumes that you’re familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Many examples make use of Git and Node.js.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding web performance
2. Using assessment tools
3. Optimizing CSS
4. Understanding critical CSS
5. Making images responsive
6. Going further with images
7. Faster fonts
8. Keeping JavaScript lean and fast
9. Boosting performance with service workers
10. Fine-tuning asset delivery
11. Looking to the future with HTTP/2
12. Automating optimization with gulp

About the Author

Jeremy Wagner is a professional front-end web developer with over ten years of experience. Foreword by Ethan Marcotte.