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Performance Optimization Best Practices

Comprehensive guidelines for optimizing performance across all projects and platforms.

Overview​

Performance optimization ensures fast, responsive, and efficient systems that provide excellent user experience and reduce operational costs.

Purpose: Maximize performance across all deliverables
Owner: Technical Team

Core Performance Principles​

Performance Fundamentals​

  1. Measure First: Always measure before optimizing
  2. User-Centric: Focus on user-perceived performance
  3. Progressive Enhancement: Start with basics, enhance progressively
  4. Continuous Monitoring: Monitor performance continuously
  5. Optimize Bottlenecks: Focus on biggest impact areas
  6. Balance Trade-offs: Balance performance vs. maintainability

Web Performance​

Page Load Optimization​

Critical Metrics:

  • First Contentful Paint (FCP): < 1.8s
  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): < 2.5s
  • Time to Interactive (TTI): < 3.8s
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): < 0.1
  • First Input Delay (FID): < 100ms

Optimization Techniques:

1. Minimize HTTP Requests:

  • Combine CSS/JS files
  • Use CSS sprites
  • Inline critical CSS
  • Lazy load images
  • Use icon fonts or SVG

2. Optimize Images:

  • Use appropriate formats (WebP, AVIF)
  • Compress images (TinyPNG, ImageOptim)
  • Responsive images (srcset)
  • Lazy loading
  • CDN delivery

3. Minify Resources:

  • Minify CSS, JavaScript, HTML
  • Remove comments and whitespace
  • Use build tools (Webpack, Vite)
  • Tree shaking
  • Code splitting

4. Enable Compression:

  • Gzip or Brotli compression
  • Server-side compression
  • Compress text resources
  • Configure properly

5. Leverage Browser Caching:

  • Set appropriate cache headers
  • Cache-Control headers
  • ETags
  • Service Workers
  • Local Storage

6. Use CDN:

  • Distribute static assets
  • Reduce latency
  • Geographic distribution
  • DDoS protection

Frontend Performance​

JavaScript Optimization:

  • Defer non-critical JavaScript
  • Async loading
  • Code splitting
  • Tree shaking
  • Minimize DOM manipulation
  • Use requestAnimationFrame
  • Debounce/throttle events

CSS Optimization:

  • Critical CSS inline
  • Defer non-critical CSS
  • Remove unused CSS
  • Use CSS containment
  • Avoid @import
  • Optimize selectors

Rendering Performance:

  • Minimize reflows/repaints
  • Use CSS transforms
  • Hardware acceleration
  • Virtual scrolling
  • Optimize animations
  • Reduce layout thrashing

Backend Performance​

Server Optimization​

Application Performance:

  • Optimize database queries
  • Use connection pooling
  • Implement caching
  • Async processing
  • Load balancing
  • Horizontal scaling

Database Optimization:

  • Index properly
  • Optimize queries
  • Use query caching
  • Database connection pooling
  • Read replicas
  • Partitioning/sharding

Caching Strategies:

  • Page caching
  • Object caching
  • Database query caching
  • CDN caching
  • Redis/Memcached
  • Cache invalidation

API Performance:

  • Pagination
  • Field filtering
  • Compression
  • Rate limiting
  • Caching
  • Async processing

Mobile Performance​

Mobile Optimization​

App Performance:

  • Minimize app size
  • Lazy loading
  • Image optimization
  • Reduce network calls
  • Cache aggressively
  • Background processing

Network Optimization:

  • Minimize requests
  • Batch requests
  • Compress data
  • Use efficient protocols
  • Offline support
  • Progressive loading

Battery Optimization:

  • Reduce CPU usage
  • Minimize network activity
  • Efficient animations
  • Background task optimization
  • Location services optimization

Performance Testing​

Testing Tools​

Web Performance:

  • Google PageSpeed Insights
  • Lighthouse
  • WebPageTest
  • GTmetrix
  • Chrome DevTools

Load Testing:

  • Apache JMeter
  • k6
  • Gatling
  • Artillery
  • Locust

Monitoring:

  • Google Analytics
  • New Relic
  • Datadog
  • Sentry
  • LogRocket

Performance Budgets​

Set Budgets:

  • Page weight: < 1MB
  • JavaScript: < 200KB
  • CSS: < 50KB
  • Images: < 500KB
  • Fonts: < 100KB
  • Load time: < 3s

Monitor Budgets:

  • Automated testing
  • CI/CD integration
  • Performance regression alerts
  • Regular audits

Performance Checklist​

Planning:

  • Set performance goals
  • Define performance budgets
  • Choose appropriate architecture
  • Plan caching strategy

Development:

  • Optimize images
  • Minify resources
  • Implement lazy loading
  • Use efficient algorithms
  • Optimize database queries

Testing:

  • Run performance tests
  • Load testing
  • Monitor metrics
  • Check on real devices
  • Test on slow networks

Deployment:

  • Enable compression
  • Configure caching
  • Use CDN
  • Monitor performance
  • Set up alerts

Maintenance:

  • Regular performance audits
  • Monitor continuously
  • Address regressions
  • Update dependencies
  • Optimize as needed

Common Performance Issues​

Issue 1: Slow Page Load​

Causes:

  • Large images
  • Too many HTTP requests
  • Unoptimized code
  • No caching
  • Slow server

Solutions:

  • Optimize images
  • Combine resources
  • Minify code
  • Enable caching
  • Use CDN

Issue 2: Poor Mobile Performance​

Causes:

  • Large app size
  • Too many network calls
  • Unoptimized images
  • Heavy animations

Solutions:

  • Reduce app size
  • Batch network calls
  • Optimize images
  • Use efficient animations

Issue 3: Database Bottleneck​

Causes:

  • Missing indexes
  • Inefficient queries
  • No caching
  • Too many connections

Solutions:

  • Add indexes
  • Optimize queries
  • Implement caching
  • Use connection pooling

Best Practices Summary​

Always:

  • ✅ Measure before optimizing
  • ✅ Focus on user experience
  • ✅ Set performance budgets
  • ✅ Monitor continuously
  • ✅ Test on real devices
  • ✅ Optimize images
  • ✅ Enable caching
  • ✅ Use CDN

Never:

  • ❌ Premature optimization
  • ❌ Ignore mobile performance
  • ❌ Skip performance testing
  • ❌ Forget to monitor
  • ❌ Optimize without measuring
  • ❌ Ignore user metrics

Last Updated: January 2026
Version: 1.0
Owner: ARUKZ DIGITAL Technical Team

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