Designing for Performance [Book Review]

Chris Love

Last Updated - Sat Jan 09 2021

Recently there have been a wave of good books focusing on web performance optimization. Recently Etsy's Lara Hogan Swanson released a new book, Designing for Performance. The book covers various technical approaches as well as how to cultivate a performance first development team.

The has 8 chapters:

1. Performance is User Experience
2. The Basics of Page Speed
3. Optimizing Images
4. Optimizing Markup and Styles
5. Responsive Web Design
6. Measuring and Iterating on Performance
7. Weighing Aesthetics and Performance
8. Changing Culture at Your Organization

The one chapter that separates Designing for Performance from other web performance optimization books is chapter 8, Changing Culture at Your Organization. This is a problem I routinely encounter in enterprises, developers and architects that do not value a performance first approach. Lara gives you some practical things you can implement in your organization to create a performance first culture. Etsy has been a leader in this area with quarterly public performance reports and a culture that makes web performance important to everyone in the organization. Lara shares tips from their experience that you can take to your organization an change the culture.

Designing for Performance is a web performance optimization resource that goes beyond just development techniques and explaining some of the science, it covers the cultural aspects as well. This is an easy to read book that should serve as a good resource for all web developers and development team managers as well as business executives. We know performance matters to the bottom line, read Designing for Performance to start applying best practices today.