Performance-First Design: Speed as a Design Constraint
~9 minutes
TLDR
Performance-first design integrates speed considerations into creative decisions, creating faster websites through strategic design constraints.
Performance-first design treats speed as a design constraint rather than technical afterthought, improving user experience and business outcomes simultaneously. Performance budget establishment sets limits for resource sizes, request counts, and loading times before design begins. Design decisions affecting performance include image optimization strategies, animation complexity limitations, font loading approaches, and third-party integration choices. Critical rendering path optimization prioritizes above-the-fold content, inline critical CSS, and defers non-essential resources. Image strategy involves format selection (WebP, AVIF), lazy loading implementation, and responsive sizing optimization. Typography performance includes font subset creation, preloading critical fonts, and fallback font specification. Animation performance uses GPU-accelerated properties and avoids layout-triggering changes. Measurement tools include Lighthouse audits, WebPageTest analysis, and real user monitoring through services like SpeedCurve. Performance monitoring establishes baseline metrics and tracks regression over time.
Performance Design, Web Performance, Speed Optimization, Performance Budget, Core Web Vitals