Google is creating a fundamental new metric for vital web data

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In a recent HTTPArchive Almanac article on CMS usage around the world, the author said that all platforms are performing well on First Input Delay (FID), a Core Web Vitals metric, and that Google is working on a new metric, which could be assumed to replace First Entry Delay (FID).

HTTPArchive publishes more articles on the state of the web every year. Chapter 16 deals with content management systems (CMS). The article was written by a Backend Group Manager and Head of Web Performance Wix engineer and reviewed and analyzed by various Googlers and others.

The article raised an interesting point about how the First Input Delay metric lost meaning and mentioned how Google was developing a new metric.

First entry delay

Core Web Vitals are a group of user experience metrics designed to provide a snapshot of web page performance for users, and First Input Delay (FID) is one such metric.

The FID measures how quickly a browser can respond to user interaction with a website, such as how long a response takes when a user clicks a button on a website.

Announcement

Read on below

The thing about FID is that all major content management systems, like WordPress, Wix, Drupal, and others all have lightning-fast FID scores.

Everyone wins a FID trophy

The article first mentions that most CMSs score exceptionally good for FID. And the platforms that score lower still have relatively high scores that are only 5 percentage points behind.

The author wrote:

“FID is very good for most desktop CMSs, with all platforms scoring 100% perfect. Most CMSs also offer good mobile FID of over 90%, except for Bitrix and Joomla. with only 83% and 85% of the origins having a good FID.

What happened to the FID is that it’s basically a metric where everyone gets a trophy. If nearly every site scores exceptionally good, if everyone scores a trophy, it means there really is no reason for the metric to exist because the goal of fixing this part of the user experience has been achieved.

Announcement

Read on below

The article then mentions how Google (the Chrome team) is currently creating a new metric to measure responsiveness and response latency.

The article continued:

“The fact that nearly all platforms deliver good FID has recently raised questions about the severity of this metric.

The Chrome team recently published an article detailing ideas for having better responsiveness metrics in the future. “

Delay of the inbound response from the full duration of the event

The article linked to a recent Google article posted on Web.dev titled Feedback Wanted: An Experimental Responsiveness Metric.

The important thing about this article is that it reveals that Google is working on a new input lag metric. Knowing this metric can give you an edge to prepare for what’s to come in the future.

The main point to understand about this new metric is that it doesn’t just measure individual interactions. It is measuring groups of individual interactions that are part of a user action.

While the article cited in HTTPArchive cited a November 2021 article requesting publisher feedback, this new metric has been in development for some time.

A Web.dev article from June 2021 outlined these goals for the new measurement:

“Consider the responsiveness of all user inputs (not just the first)

Capture the entire duration of each event (not just the delay).

Group events that occur as part of the same logical user interaction and define the latency of that interaction as the maximum duration of all related events.

Create an aggregate score for all interactions that occur on a page, throughout its lifecycle. “

The Web.dev article states that the goal is to design a better metric that includes a more meaningful measurement of the user experience.

“We want to design a metric that better captures the end-to-end latency of individual events and offers a more holistic picture of a page’s overall responsiveness throughout its lifespan.

… With this new metric we plan to expand it to capture the entire duration of the event, from initial user input to drawing the next frame after all event handlers have been executed.

We also plan to measure interactions rather than individual events. Interactions are groups of events that are sent as part of the user’s logical gesture (for example: pointerdown, click, pointerup). “

Announcement

Read on below

It is also explained in this way:

“Event duration is the time between the hardware timestamp of the event and when the next paint is done after the event has been handled.

But if the event doesn’t cause any updates, the duration will be the time from the hardware timestamp of the event to the time we’re sure it won’t cause any updates. “

Two approaches to interaction latency metrics

Web.dev explains that Chrome engineers are exploring two approaches to measure interaction latency:

Maximum event duration Total event duration Maximum event duration

An interaction consists of multiple events of varying duration. This measurement is based on the longest duration of a group.

Total duration of the event

This is a sum of all the durations of the event.

Is the FID in danger of disappearing?

It’s possible the FID could remain as part of Core Web Vitals, but what’s the point if ever a site gets a 100% score on it?

Announcement

Read on below

For this reason, it is not unreasonable to assume that the FID will disappear in the relatively near future.

The Chrome team is requesting feedback on different approaches to measuring interaction latency. Now is the time to speak.

quotes

HTTPArchive Web Almanac: CMS

Feedback Required: A metric of experimental responsiveness

Towards a better responsiveness metric

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