Fronteers Spring conference

Fronteers Spring Conference Sessions

Animation & perceived performanceTobias Ahlin

How do we animate smoothly without laptop fans going haywire all around the world? It’s through animation that we make sense of the world: doors swing open, cars drive to their destinations, lips curl into smiles. Even the things that feel instantaneous, like lightning striking, or dropping a phone on your face while browsing in bed, happen over time, and it’s through that motion that we understand how objects relate and function; if they are light or heavy, rigid or loose, connected or separate, sticky or slippery.

In this talk we’ll dig deep into theory and code examples in the pursuit of trying to answer a seemingly simple question: How do we really create performant web animations?

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The Illusion of SpeedPaul Bakaus

If you could take a 50% hit in real world performance and get a site that feels 50% faster, would you? Nobody cares how fast your site is. All your users care about is how fast your site feels. Going beyond the perceived perf theory, Paul is bringing a bunch of demos of things that employ clever tricks and psychology to turn things that should be slow into things that feel incredibly fast.

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Web Fonts PerformanceBram Stein

Web fonts are great. They are also be really bad for performance because they block rendering. You may have experienced this on a slow cellular network. Staring at a blank page is no fun, especially when content has already loaded.

This talk will explore why browser have placed fonts on the critical path, and how we can work around this while still delivering a good user experience. We’ll also take a look at what the future will bring to web font performance: preloading hints and the new font-display property.

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Accessibility and PerformanceMarcy Sutton

How do slow performing JavaScript applications impact user experience for people with disabilities–are there certain aspects of the web rendering process that create barriers when you're relying on a screen reader?

By studying the limitations of browsers with assistive technologies and establishing developer best practices, we can we make faster, more accessible experiences for our users. We'll frame Web Performance with an Accessibility lens, looking at progressive enhancement in detail with server- and client-rendered apps built with Angular 2, React or Ember FastBoot; always remembering our friend, static HTML.

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To Hell with PerformanceKarl Groves

There are scores of concerns, both back-end and front-end, when considering performance. When it comes to accessibility, user performance is also a major concern and extends beyond things like perceived time. While perceived time is very important for UX, accessible user experience intersects performance in that it requires allowing the user to answer one core question as they work with the interface: "What is this thing, and what does it do". In this talk we'll talk about the intersections of UX, performance, and accessibility and how each contribute to an accessible user experience.

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RWD is not a panacea — Estelle Weyl

Responsive Web Design (RWD) is the solution for putting our apps on mobile devices. Or is it? Bloated web applications that simply shrink in width are not usable. Squishy design is not the only, or even the main, solution for improved mobile web user experience. Other than responsive design, how can we improve performance so our mobile web applications, responsive or not, are usable and accessible no matter how a user chooses to access it.

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Towards Faster, Safer WebsitesYan Zhu

Everyone in 2016 knows that websites should use HTTPS. However, there is a common misconception that TLS and other security measures slow down both web developers and page load times. This talk will show you some easy tricks to make your site more secure without sacrificing performance.

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Your Hero Images Need You! Save the Day with HTTP2 Image LoadingTobias Baldauf

Images form 64% of all website data & have a high correlation to page load time. Optimizing image delivery through compression alone is a daunting task. Using HTTP2's superpowers, we can optimize images to ship faster, increasing the perceived performance and initiating users' emotional responses to visuals earlier. HTTP2-powered image delivery leads to lower bounce rates and higher conversions.

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Front-End Performance: The Dark SideMathias Bynens

In security-sensitive situations, performance can actually be a bug rather than a feature. This presentation covers timing attacks on the web, and demonstrates how modern performance-related web APIs can sometimes have a negative security impact.

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Closing keynote — Kristian Sköld

Occasionally, the stakeholders at your client need some convincing to have you go the extra mile for performance. That means making a business case for web performance optimization. In his closing keynote, Kristian Sköld will help you do this using data-based analysis and real-life examples of his large-scale clients.

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