From Steve Souders, author of High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers, comes the following useful 14 “Rules for High Performance Web Sites”:
, comes the following useful 14 “- Rule 1 — Make Fewer HTTP Requests
- Rule 2 — Use a Content Delivery Network
- Rule 3 — Add an Expires Header
- Rule 4 — Gzip Components
- Rule 5 — Put CSS at the Top
- Rule 6 — Move Scripts to the Bottom
- Rule 7 — Avoid CSS Expressions
- Rule 8 — Make JavaScript and CSS External
- Rule 9 — Reduce DNS Lookups
- Rule 10 — Minify JavaScript
- Rule 11 — Avoid Redirects
- Rule 12 — Remove Duplicate Scripts
- Rule 13 — Turn Off ETags
- Rule 14 — Make AJAX Cacheable and Small
As he notes, fetching Web sites generally follows the “80 – 20″ principle: 20% of the time a user waits to see a page is spent getting the actual HTML page. 80% of the time is spent on everything else.
The book is still in the “rough cuts” stage, but sounds like an excellent and practical guide to making your site more usable and functional from a user perspective.
unbound
krisnelson
The Yahoo! Developer Network now has more information up about the book, plus a Firefox tool to help analyze a page based on 13 factors:
Make Fewer HTTP Requests
Use a Content Delivery Network
Add an Expires Header
Gzip Components
Put CSS at the Top
Move Scripts to the Bottom
Avoid CSS Expressions
Make JavaScript and CSS External
Reduce DNS Lookups
Minify JavaScript
Avoid Redirects
Remove Duplicate Scripts
Configure ETags