Resources and Considerations for Mobile Web Performance Optimization

Summary
Considerations
Presentations

Summary

This document serves as a pointer to resources rather than as advocacy.

Considerations

This won't cover general topic areas like current mobile use rates, device breakdown, or the business opportunity. Links are derived in part from

https://pinboard.in/u:jwalsh/t:mobile

Baseline

The first step in the review of sites that have a mobile presence is understanding

The redirection infrastructure (WURFL)
Base page structuring
Available libraries

Similar work is noted in

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuKCpKCF44etdHpwS2NnZnJEd3BqY0E0VS1TcnBKdkE&pli=1#gid=0

Testing

Graded Mobile Browser Support

http://jquerymobile.com/gbs/

Keynotes

I haven't tried their service; from initial discussions with the representatives this seemed only to provide rendering testing based on switching the user agent strings rather than physical devices.

http://www.keynotedeviceanywhere.com/

Blaze.io

http://www.blaze.io/

Also used with a base test system under

This is a useful tool but primarily designed for performance measurement.

Tools

Emulator: iOS

Emulator: Android

Simulator: Blackberry

http://us.blackberry.com/developers/resources/simulators.jsp

TODO: Find the article that detailed risk areas when using a simulator.

Debugger: Weinre

Debugging mobile

http://people.apache.org/~pmuellr/weinre/

This usually requires running either a debugger like the one above or using bookmarklets (which I've not really tried).

Debugger: Bookmarklets

http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2011/03/14/mobile-comparison-of-top-11/

Offline

Is there specific bahavior needed when offline or should there be offline detection.

http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/offline.html

Rendering

Caching

Latency

http://blog.davidsingleton.org/mobiletcp/

Detection

http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/

Presentations

A number of these are specific to mobile performance but would also cover the standard test coverage needs for APIs.

Nicholas Zakas, Mobile Web Speed Bumps, Web Directions Unplugged 2011

As browsers explode with new capabilities and migrate onto devices users can be left wondering, whats taking so long? Learn how HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the web itself conspire against a fast-running application and simple tips to create a snappy interface that delight users instead of frustrating them.

Steve Souders, Mobile Performance, jQuery Conference 2011

Before Firebug existed it was hard to know what the browser was doing with your web page. Firebug (and more recent tools like dynaTrace Ajax Edition, Speed Tracer, Web Inspector, and HttpWatch) let us see how HTTP, JavaScript, CSS, the DOM, and rendering take up time as the user waits for the page to load. This visibility into browser performance has generated many web performance best practices as captured in tools like YSlow and Page Speed. The performance evolution that took place on the desktop (tools and research resulting in best practices) is starting in mobile. Right now were at step 1: gaining visibility into whats happening in the mobile browser. Without this visibility, mobile web developers are flying blind. In this session Steve Souders shows how to analyze mobile performance across all the popular devices. He demonstrates analysis tools, services for accessing devices remotely, and quirks hes discovered that show mobile performance is full of surprises.

Rajiv Vijayakumar, Understanding Mobile Web Performance, Velocity 2011

An in-depth look at two critical factors affecting mobile Web browser performance: first how to optimize browser performance on 3G/4G mobile networks, including managing higher latencies and the cost of bringing radio connections up and down; second looking at mobile browser software architecture for Android, including reduced cache sizes, and support for parallel connections and pipelining.

Maximiliano Firtman, Mobile Web & HTML5 Performance Optimization, Velocity 2011

Mobile Web is here. Smartphones and Tablets are here. Does typical WPO techniques still apply on mobile browsers? How can we measure performance on mobile browsers? How accurate are the solutions available? In this session, we will discuss one of the most important topics in WPO during 2011: Mobile Web.