David Gilbertson
Jul 20, 2017 · 1 min read

Hmm, I disagree with the idea of collecting RUM data to assist in reaching the end goal of making a website faster.

Firstly, anyone with a website can assume that their users have a variety of network/processing capabilities. That’s a given.

So what more is RUM data going to tell me? And I mean real actionable information — something that will drive a site to be faster that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have RUM data.

The idea of “understanding your users’ experience” with the goal of improving performance via collecting numbers seems a bit theoretical and detached from reality for my tastes.

It’s all going to come down to HTTP/2, preloading, lazy loading, compressing, etc. I can’t think of a single improvement to site speed that I’ve made that would have been any different if I had RUM data. I’d be interested to hear of any instances where it has made a difference.

Capturing usage metrics for purposes other than improving performance is a whole other kettle of fish.

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    David Gilbertson

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    I like web stuff.