Infrequently Noted

Frontend took ill with a bad case of JavaScript fever at the worst possible moment. The predictable consequence is a web that feels terrible most of the time, resulting in low and falling use of the web on smartphones.^[1]

If nothing changes, eventually, the web will become a footnote in the history of computing; a curio along side mainframes and minicomputers — never truly gone but lingering with an ashen palour and a necrotic odour.

We don't have to wait to see how this drama plays out to understand the very real consequences of JavaScript excess on users.^[2]

Everyone in a site's production chain has agency to prevent disaster. Procurement leads, in-house IT staff, and the managers, PMs, and engineers working for contractors and subcontractors building the SNAP sites we examined all had voices that were more powerful than the users they under-served. Any of them could have acted to steer the ship away from the rocks.

Unacceptable performance is the consequence of a chain of failures to put the user first. Breaking the chain usually requires just one insistent advocate. Disasters like BenefitsCal are not inevitable.

The same failures play out in the commercial teams I sit with day-to-day. Failure is not a foregone conclusion, yet there's an endless queue of sites stuck in the same ditch, looking for help to pull themselves out. JavaScript overindulgence is always an affirmative decision, no matter how hard industry "thought leaders" gaslight us.

Marketing that casts highly volatile, serially failed frontend frameworks as "standard" or required is horse hockey. Nobody can force an entire industry to flop so often it limits its future prospects.

These are choices.

Teams that succeed resolve to stand for the users first, then explore techniques that build confidence.

So, assuming we want to put users first, what approaches can even the odds? There's no silver bullet,^[3] but some techniques are unreasonably effective.

Managers #

Engineering managers, product managers, and tech leads can make small changes to turn the the larger ship dramatically.

First, institute critical-user-journey analysis.

Force peers and customers to agree about what actions users will take, in order, on the site most often. Document those flows end-to-end, then automate testing for them end-to-end in something like WebPageTest.org's scripting system. Then define key metrics around these journeys. Build dashboards to track performance end-to-end.

Next, reform your frontend hiring processes.

Never, ever hire for JavaScript framework skills. Instead, interview and hire only for fundamentals like web standards, accessibility, modern CSS, semantic HTML, and Web Components. This is doubly important if your system uses a framework.

The push-back to this sort of change comes from many quarters, but I can assure you from deep experience that the folks you want to hire can learn anything, so the framework on top of the platform is the least valuable part of any skills conversation. There's also a glut of folks with those talents on the market, and they're vastly underpriced vs. their effectiveness, so "ability to hire" isn't a legitimate concern. Teams that can't find those candidates aren't trying.

Some teams are in such a sorry state regarding fundamentals that they can't even vet candidates on those grounds. If that's your group, don't hestitate to reach out.

In addition to attracting the most capable folks at bargain-basement prices, delivering better work more reliably, and spending less on JavaScript treadmill taxes, publicising these criteria sends signals that will attract more of the right talent over time. Being the place that "does it right" generates compound value. The best developers want to work in teams that prize their deeper knowledge. Demonstrate that respect in your hiring process.

Next, issue every product and engineering leader cheap phones and laptops.

Senior leaders should set the expectation those devices will be used regularly and for real work, including visibly during team meetings. If we do not live as our customers, blind spots metastasise.

Lastly, climb the Performance Management Maturity ladder, starting with latency budgets for every project, based on the previously agreed critical user journeys. They are foundational in building a culture that does not backslide.

Engineers and Designers #

Success or failure is in your hands, literally. Others in the equation may have authority, but you have power.

Begin to use that power to make noise. Refuse to go along with plans to build YAJSD (Yet Another JavaScript Disaster). Engineering leaders look to their senior engineers for trusted guidance about what technologies to adopt. When someone inevitably proposes the React rewrite, do not be silent. Do not let the bullshit arguments and nonsense justifications pass unchallenged. Make it clear to engineering leadership that this stuff is expensive and is absolutely not "standard".

Demand bakeoffs and testing on low-end devices.

The best thing about cheap devices is they're cheap! So inexpensive that you can likely afford a low-end phone out-of-pocket, even if the org doesn't issue one. Alternatively, WebPageTest.org can generate high-quality, low-noise simulations and side-by-side comparisons of the low-end situation.

Write these comparisons into testing plans early.

Advocate for metrics and measurements that represent users at the margins.

Teams that have climbed the Performance Management Maturity ladder intuitively look at the highest percentiles to understand system performance. Get comfortable doing the same, and build that muscle in your engineering practice.

Build the infrastructure you'll need to show, rather than tell. This can be dashboards or app-specific instrumentation. Whatever it is, just build it. Nobody in a high-performing engineering organisastion will be ungrateful for additional visibility.

Lastly, take side-by-side traces and wave them like a red shirt.

Remember, none of the other people in this equation are working to undercut users, but they rely on you to guide their decisions. Be a class traitor; do the right thing and speak up for users on the margins who can't be in the room where decisions are made.

Public Sector Agencies #

If your organisation is unfamiliar with the UK Government Digital Service's excellent Service Manual, get reading.

Once everyone has put their copy down, institute the UK's progressive enhancement standard and make it an enforceable requirement in procurement.^[4] The cheapest architecture errors to fix are the ones that weren't committed.

Next, build out critical-user-journey maps to help bidders and in-house developers understand system health. Insist on dashboards to monitor those flows.

Use tender processes to send clear signals that proposals which include SPA architectures or heavy JS frameworks (React, Angular, etc.) will face acceptance challenges.

Next, make space in your budget to hire senior technologists and give them oversight power with teeth.

The root cause of many failures is the continuation of too-big-to-fail contracting. The antidote is scrutiny from folks versed in systems, not only requirements. An effective way to build and maintain that skill is to stop writing omnibus contracts in the first place.

Instead, farm out smaller bits of work to smaller shops across shorter timelines. Do the integration work in-house. That will necessitate maintaining enough tech talent to own and operate these systems, building confidence over time.

Reforming procurement is always challenging; old habits run deep. But it's possible to start with the very next RFP.

Values Matter #

Today's frontend community is in crisis.

If it doesn't look that way, it's only because the instinct to deny the truth is now fully ingrained. But the crisis is incontrovertable in the data. If the web had grown at the same pace as mobile computing, mobile web browsing would be more than a 1/3 larger than it is today. Many things are holding the web back — Apple springs to mind — but pervasive JavaScript-based performance disasters are doing their fair share.

All of the failures I documented in public sector sites are things I've seen dozens of times in industry. When an e-commerce company loses tens or hundreds of millions of dollars because the new CTO fired the old guard out to make way for a bussload of Reactors, it's just (extremely stupid) business. But the consequences of frontend's accursed turn towards all-JavaScript-all-the-time are not so readily contained. Public sector services that should have known better are falling for the same malarkey.

Frontend's culture has more to answer for than lost profits; we consistently fail users and the companies that pay us to serve them because we've let unscrupulous bastards sell snake oil without consequence.

Consider the alternative.

Canadian engineers graduating college are all given an iron ring. It's a symbol of professional responsibility to society. It also recognises that every discipline must earn its social license to operate. Lastly, it serves as a reminder of the consequences of shoddy work and corner-cutting.

I want to be a part of a frontend culture that accepts and promotes our responsibilities to others, rather than wallowing in self-centred "DX" puffery. In the hierarchy of priorities, users must come first.

What we do in the world matters, particularly our vocations, not because of how it affects us, but because our actions improve or degrade life for others. It's hard to imagine that culture while the JavaScript-industrial-complex has seized the commanding heights, but we should try.

And then we should act, one project at a time, to make that culture a reality.