# How teams can improve web performance by putting users first

DevFeed: [How teams can improve web performance by putting users first](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/reckoning-part-4-the-way-out-26547.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/>)

Author: Alex Russell

Published: 2024-08-16T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Alex Russell](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/alex-russell.md>)

Topics: [JavaScript](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/javascript.md>), [Front end](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/frontend.md>), [Web Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web-development.md>), [Testing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/testing.md>), [dashboards](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/dashboards.md>)

Tags: [dashboards](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/dashboards.md>), [frameworks](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/frameworks.md>), [frontend](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/frontend.md>), [javascript](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/javascript.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>), [webdev](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/webdev.md>)

## AI overview

This opinion article argues that excessive JavaScript contributes to poor web experiences, especially on smartphones, and that performance problems result from organizational choices across the production chain. It recommends critical-user-journey analysis, end-to-end automated testing, performance metrics, and dashboards to improve outcomes.

## Source excerpt

Other posts in the series: Reckoning: Part 1 -- The Landscape Reckoning: Part 2 -- Object Lesson Reckoning: Part 3 -- Caprock Frontend took ill with a bad case of JavaScript fever at the worst possible moment. The predictable consequence is a web that feels terrible most of the time, resulting in low and falling use of the web on smartphones.1 Public data shows what I warned about, citing Google-private data, in 2019. In the US, time spent in browsers continues to stagnate while smartphone use grows, and the situation is even more dire outside the states. The result is a falling fraction of time spent. This is not a recipe for a healthy web. If nothing changes, eventually, the web will become a footnote in the history of computing; a curio along side mainframes and minicomputers -- never truly gone but lingering with an ashen palour and a necrotic odour. We don't have to wait to see how this drama plays out to understand the very real consequences of JavaScript excess on users.2 Contents Managers Engineers and Designers Public Sector Agencies Values Matter Everyone in a site's production chain has agency to prevent disaster. Procurement leads, in-house IT staff, and the managers, PMs, and engineers working for contractors and subcontractors building the SNAP sites we examined all had voices that were more powerful than the users they under-served. Any of them could have acted to steer the ship away from the rocks. Unacceptable performance is the consequence of a chain of failures to put the user first. Breaking the chain usually requires just one insistent advocate. Disasters like BenefitsCal are not inevitable. The same failures play out in the commercial teams I sit with day-to-day. Failure is not a foregone conclusion, yet there's an endless queue of sites stuck in the same ditch, looking for help to pull themselves out. JavaScript overindulgence is always an affirmative decision, no matter how hard industry "thought leaders" gaslight us. Marketing that casts highly