Our best practices are killing mobile web performance • molily →

So why do mobile websites perform so badly? In my opinion, developers follow best practices. If they are applied without consideration, these practices may kill us:

  • Progressive Enhancement and Unobtrusive JavaScript
  • Non-blocking, asynchronous JavaScript
  • Lazy-loading of non-critical content

Mathias Schäfer (molily) points out a few flaws in existing best practices and questions the real-life benefits of using 'unobtrusive JavaScript'.

In the age of predominant mobile web access, some of these practices are causing harm. Some are fine per se but applied without consideration. I'm not suggesting to abandon them completely, but to revise them for the mobile age.