Why poor site performance is an issue for digital citizens

Written by Andy Davies - July 11, 2024

Last week I wrote about the importance of site performance & accessibility for youth charities. This week I’ll discuss some of the themes in that article, site performance and accessibility, through a slightly different lens. 

Promoting positive solutions and stories is all the more important in today’s political and social climate. Political change across the globe suggests that progressive movements have a communications problem. Could poor levels of site performance and accessibility in some sectors be feeding into this?

Let’s explore how poor site performance intersects with data poverty, access to information and the citizen story.

What has being a citizen got to do with site performance?

In this case I’m talking about “Citizens” in the Jon Alexander and Baratunde Thurston sense. They argue that the solution to our societal & climatic problems is collaboration & participation. The tagline of Jon’s book is “The key to fixing everything is all of us”. Baratunde wants us to “Work towards outcomes that benefit the many – not just the few.”

I think Jon sums it up perfectly on the New Citizen Project website: 

When we think of ourselves as citizens rather than consumers, we’re more likely to participate, volunteer and come together to make our society stronger.

When I looked at the youth movement websites for the last article something struck me. With the performance and accessibility issues I found, many people would struggle to access the information on the site. If you can’t get the information, it’s harder to participate. It’s harder to become a Citizen.

Where site performance, inequality and Citizens intersect. 

Alex Russell’s depressingly informative “Performance Inequality Report 2024” digs into some of the issues. The internet is operating faster than ever but device, connection and performance issues remain a real world issue for most users. The report looks at the page weight budget required to meet a 5 second first load (equivalent to the TTI metric) benchmark. What does that mean in layman’s terms? Put simply, you need a light, performant site if you want to reach more users with the solutions you offer. 

This is important because a website is a key messaging tool for any organisation. Only one of the ten environmental sites I analysed last week got close to the 5 second benchmark. The rest missed it by orders of magnitude. It means that many less wealthy users (those using cheaper devices and slower internet connections) will experience significant issues loading the site. For these users site performance becomes a major access issue.

Data poverty and site performance inequality are global issues

Web designers tend to work on high performance devices. It makes workflows more efficient and for Wholegrain at least, helps us build the low weight sites I’m advocating for here! We’re a tech savvy set of remote workers and tend to have better than average broadband too. This doesn’t reflect the norm though, even in developed nations.

When we talk about data poverty and site performance issues, we’re not talking about the developing world. A large number of users in the developed world access the internet via cheaper mobile devices on slow connections. For instance the UK ranks 53rd in the world for median mobile connection speed according to Speedtest.net. 

When I talk about mobile devices I’m not talking about the latest iPhone. Globally Android holds around 71% of market share vs 29% for iOS. Apple devices remain more expensive and have higher performance than even high end Android devices.

This makes the fact that in the US a significant proportion of the adult population are “smartphone dependent” even more important.  Smartphone dependency is where your only personal online access is via a small handheld internet enabled device. 20% of 18 to 29 year olds are in this category along with 28% of US adults who earn less than $30,000 a year. (Source)

Younger and less well off users in the western world are more affected by the issues I’m discussing.

Viewing the issue as a “Citizen” problem

With the scene set, back to the idea of the Citizen. Site performance is often viewed through an e-commerce lens. Make your site faster, sell more stuff.  Quicker connection, faster consumption. It’s part of the consumer story Jon Alexander discusses. This ignores the fact that the problem presents barriers to becoming a better citizen too.

Site performance issues create barriers to participation and contribute to maintaining inequality in our society.

All of the sites I looked at had similar core messages:

  • Access to clean air and water 
  • Better, greener jobs 
  • Higher, fairer standards of living
  • A just transition to a regenerative economy
  • Supporting front line communities
  • Empowerment and hope
  • Collaboration, community and participation

Jon and Baratunde would be very proud.

The issue is that those core messages might not be accessible to the people who need to read them the most. Overwhelmingly the sites in question appreciate that the transition required needs to be fair to everyone. But as we’ve established these same sites are unwittingly making it harder for the communities and demographics most affected to find out about the solutions. Those stories of hope, positivity and action are less easily accessed.

As a resident of France watching a climate denying Far Right party perform strongly in the first round of elections, I can tell you that stories of hope matter. If you don’t tell them to the people who need to hear them, other people will fill that void.

What to do?

Firstly take hope and inspiration from sites that do things well. Sites like Greenhouse Sports and Generative Work show that purpose driven organisations can have vibrant, positive and performant sites.

You can participate in forums like Climate Action Tech to help move the industry forwards. You could learn better standards and methods at sustainablewebdesign.org.

You can also watch this space.

Not this exact space, the Wholegrain space.

We are currently working on a digital sustainability project for the masses. A fun, collaborative, participative space to teach users how to make the web a better place for citizens. How to cut through the negative, consumerist, individualist noise on the internet and tell better stories. How to provide better solutions and do it in a holistic and lower carbon way.

Curiously Green is growing…