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Front-End Performance: Building Faster Websites

Harry Roberts
Your instructor
Harry Roberts
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Workshop includes:

  • Snacks and drinks
  • Tea and Coffee
  • Lunch
  • Paper and pen/pencil

Full-day workshop • Thursday, October 17
Every case-study, every report, and every bit of feedback always tells us the same thing: speed matters.


It’s good for users, it’s good for accessibility, and it’s good for business. But why are modern browsing experiences so slow? If technology is getting better, why are websites getting worse?

In this workshop, we’ll take an in-depth look at:

  • How the network really works, and how to design around it;
  • How to keep websites fast whilst keeping clients and stakeholders happy;
  • How to optimise our assets for faster delivery;
  • How to trick the browser into delivering assets with different priorities;
  • How to measure and profile performance wins and losses;
  • A whole host of tips, tricks, and techniques to help us deliver the same experiences in record times;
  • A bunch of fascinating little factoids and trivia which help shine a light on what’s really going on under the hood;
  • How to prepare for the web (and its users) of tomorrow;
  • Lots of naughty little micro-optimisations, just for fun;
  • And a lot, lot more.

What prerequisites skills do you need?

This workshop is targeted at intermediate to advanced front-end developers, web designers, and software engineers, or anybody who writes code. There will be resources and case studies for you to take back to non-technical stakeholders to help convince them of the power of performance.

What hardware/software do you need?

You will need a laptop, and something for making a lot of notes.

About Harry Roberts

Harry is an award-winning Consultant Performance Engineer from the UK. With a client list ranging from the United Nations to Google, the BBC to the Financial Times, he has helped some of the world’s largest organisations make their websites faster.

He writes about all things front-end performance at csswizardry.com, speaks at tech events all across the globe, and regularly shares his insights at @csswizardry.

Time & Location

This full-day workshop will be hosted at the Microsoft Technology Center and will take place the day after SmashingConf. The workshop will be running from 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM on Thursday, October 17.

Schedule for Thursday, October 17

9:00 AM – Doors open, Registration
9:30 AM – Introduction & Kick-off
11:00 AM – Coffee Break
1:00 PM – Lunch
2:00 PM – Afternoon Session
3:30 PM – Coffee Break
5:30 PM – The End

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