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Site performance

Wikimedia Foundation - Jan 2014

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Metric definition

* page load time: time from start of navigation to the browser’s “load” event, indicating that all page resources (text, images, etc.) have been loaded.

* some interactive features may not be ready for user input.

* we attempt to collect this figure from 1:1,000 requests, but only 70.31% of users use a browser capable of reporting this number, so more like 7:10,000.

* includes both desktop and mobile sites of all Wikimedia wikis.

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MO Q1 Q2 Q3 AVG

4 1057 1973 3960 3609

5 1069 1998 4023 3678

6 1116 2093 4213 3841

7 1331 2601 5187 4632

8 1432 2905 5722 4979

9 1643 3241 6172 5329

10 1542 2958 5685 4912

11 1614 3009 5748 5036

12 1500 2707 5200 4665

1 1486 2687 5142 4636

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“Users really respond to speed.”

* When asked, users unanimously said they preferred more results.

* A/B test of 30 results per page vs. 10 showed 25% fewer searches in less that six weeks.

* Why? 30 results takes .9 seconds to generate; 10 results take .4.

* "Latency really does matter to users, whether or not they can articulate it."

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Between April and September, average page load latency increased by 1.7 seconds.

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percentage change: 7% - 27%

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We need to change.

We are changing.

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Priorities

* Supportive culture.

* Ownership.

* Monitoring.

* Feedback for developers.

* Make performance visible.