I’ve been doing some research on performance testing, and found the excellent blog Web Performance Today. In particular, the post “You are the worst judge of your site’s performance. Here’s why.” was a great read. Product Managers are biased in judging performance, for the reasons explained in the article:
- We have great tools, like Mac computers and the newest iPhones, that do better with poor product performance.
- We’re too sympathetic to what it takes to make a fast site, and are willing to accept slow performance as we know how hard it is to make it fast.
- We know how to work around slow performance by refreshing sites, closing other browser tabs, blocking ads, and other tricks.
Given the unsettling bias in our own judgement, there are ways to gain empathy and awareness of slow performance. With a new Product Manager, first it is important to make them aware of their bias. As users, we’re a small segment for most of our products, being early adopters and lovers of technology. We’re not the majority that will make our products cross the chasm. We must avoid letting personal bias substitute real user experience and feedback in our judgement of performance.
To help avoid our bias, here are some tricks to get a truer feel for your site’s performance:
- Use a bad laptop for a day. Most Product Managers I’ve worked with use the latest Macs, which do a great job with websites and apps. Instead, leave your laptop at home one day, and get a loaner laptop from IT. You’ll likely get a PC several years old; the same type of PC your users have, that you can use to try your product.
- Use a VM to access older browsers. Your dev team is likely already using VMs, and they or your IT team may be able to create an older Windows instance for you to use. It should have older IE, with the default privacy/performance settings, to give you a great taste for how the site feels. VMs typically also have bare-bones specs, or you can ask your team to make it lean by not provisioning many resources. If you’re feeling daring, you could even demo off the VM.
- Use a slow connection. Go to a Starbucks, library, or public Wifi to avoid the speed from your work and home’s network. You may even be able to join one from your office depending on if you’re located next to stores.
- Don’t multitask. Use your product, and don’t let yourself get distracted or look away while it loads. On one product I owned, a joke got started to sing “Loading Loading Loading” to the tune of Rawhide’s theme song whenever the loading spinner was shown. If you make yourself think or sing an annoying song while your product loads, you’ll feel the pain.
Of course, you should also have performance tracking and monitoring on your site, (Web Performance Today can tell you a lot more), but I’ve found numbers don’t make you really feel the pain. By making yourself see what it’s like for your customers, you gain empathy and remove your bias.