5 Reasons why Optimization of Interactives is Crucial

1. Because No One likes to Wait

Visitors don't like to wait unnecessarily and drop out if an interactive takes too long to load. Think about how much you enjoy waiting while an hourglass on the screen turns for the umpteenth time.

Especially when visitors use an interactive on a smartphone or tablet, which is an increasing group of users, well done optimization is important. Although phone networks are considerably faster now than ten years ago, they are still slower than the network connection you have at home or at a fixed workplace. And the speed of the network has a direct influence on the loading time of an online interactive.

Of course there is a difference in loading time expectations between a simple interactive on one hand compared to a super elaborate interactive full of graphics, layers, modes, data and complex programming code on the other. Most visitors will understand that an interactive has to be loaded. But no longer than necessary. With the right techniques and smart tricks, a big difference can be made. In this way, the loading speed can also be greatly increased with demanding interactives. Sometimes even to a loading time that is not or hardly more than with a simple interactive.

And every visitor will appreciate that.

2. Because Fast Interactives radiate Reliability, Care and Quality

Optimal loading speed is not only important to avoid testing the patience of your visitors. The fact that an interactive loads quickly is also an important indication that says a lot about the expertise of the developer and how important quality is to you as a company or brand.

A well-developed interactive gives a great sense of quality and feels more reliable. Because clearly effort had been put into it and you didn't go for fast and cheap. And that radiates consciously or unconsciously to your brand with visitors.

When the interactive is loaded, it is important for a visitor that an interactive looks inviting and accessible. But if loading takes a long time and the interactive feels slow, it will not leave a good impression. At best, your visitors will then be reluctant to use the interactive, because there is no alternative available. But more likely unfortunately after trying to leave once not to come back.

You have unfortunately achieved the opposite of your goal and you may even have lost a potential customer.

3. Because Resources are Finite

Interactives run with programming code, animations and all in the visitor's browser. However, each interactive must be loaded from a server, and many interactives also connect to external systems for retrieving and transmitting data in addition.

By making the right choices as a developer and designer when programming and designing, and by applying various optimization techniques at the same time, unnecessary server and memory load can be prevented. For example, in many cases, the number of requests to servers can be drastically reduced, memory can be used more efficiently, and animations can be optimized to run at the highest possible frame rate, as smoothly as possible, without slowing down.

In a programming language there are several ways to achieve a result. But especially in a language like Javascript there is a lot of difference in different techniques. Some techniques require more system capacity than others. Certain techniques are simply slow, while others can be optimized for specific tasks. That can make a lot of difference. A good knowledge of systems and programming languages ​​and the right choice of techniques when building an interactive is therefore essential and can make a huge difference in performance.

In addition, optimal use of system resources is also important to make more possible within, but also outside the interactive.

4. Because you get a Higher Ranking in Search Engines

More and more companies understand how important Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is for websites to get a higher spot in the rankings of search engines like Google.

But not everyone realizes that Google also takes the speed of websites into account when determining the ranking. The better the web page performs in terms of speed, the better the page is valued and that determines its position in the search results.

So if a web page is or hosts an interactive, this interactive can be a factor to determine the performance of the page to a large extent. So it's therefore also important for SEO that the interactive is well optimized so that it loads quickly.

5. Because Perceptual Speed is perhaps the Most Important

The last reason I mention here is certainly not the least. In fact, I'd say it's arguably the most important on the list.

The previous points mainly concern measurable speed improvements. But in addition to technical optimizations, we should perhaps especially take into account the speed as experienced by the user, in other words the perceptual speed. And this doesn't always have to be 1-to-1 related to the actual measurable speed.

Some actions, such as requesting data from a server when a user clicks on something, simply takes time and depends on external factors. Like the speed of an internet connection. In order to perform time-demanding actions, smart techniques exist to make interfaces feel quickly responsive. Although things may actually take a little longer in reality. This keeps an interface for a user feeling fast, pleasant and reliable without losing functionality.

The same goes for animations. Wigglepixel is a big supporter of and is specialized in good animations. Because these not only make life so much more fun and joyful, they also contribute positively to the intuitive understanding and use of interactives, if applied properly. But if animations aren't applied the right way, they can unfortunately also contribute to an interface that feels sluggish and unwieldy. And a negative influence on a user's perceptual speed is of course the last thing we're after.

Conclusion

Hopefully with this blog post I have succeeded in showing you that an interactive only really comes into its own and is lifted to a higher level if it is also optimally programmed and optimized.

Less than ever, people feel like waiting in an endlessly changing and growing sea of ​​information and possibilities available online. Our job is to keep the visitor engaged with an interesting, attractive and pleasantly responsive, reliable-feeling interactive.

A well-functioning, well-designed, animating interactive is simply so enjoyable and ensures that you can understand and use it right away.

But building optimized interactives certainly doesn't have to take longer to develop per se. A good company automatically applies these techniques during design and programming and takes this into account from the first stage. So it's purely a matter of making the right choices for the best result. Based on years of experience and up-to-date knowledge.

If I want to give you one thing to remember after all of the above: When your visitors have a great experience by using an interactive, they not only found what they were looking for, but you've also achieved your company goal with the interactive, your visitors like to return and associate your company or brand with quality, effort for well-functioning techniques and fun. And who knows, you might end up with a new customer!

If that's not the most optimized win-win situation, what is?!