Pagespeed Insights is an online tool Google has created that measures the download speed of a website, judges multiple parts of the site’s user experience, and then creates scores based on the page’s speed, usability, accessibility, etc. Pagespeed Insights is also an online tool that is easily accessible for less technically minded users, such as managers and stakeholders that ultimately see only the big bright score and disregard anything else.
According to Google, Pagespeed Insights “Shows speed field data for your site, alongside suggestions for common optimizations to improve it.” So, it is more of a web interface version of Lighthouse, which is a built-in developer’s tool in Chrome that is not easily accessible unless you know how to access Devtools.
With news about Google accounting for pagespeed in their search rankings, it’s no wonder that a single search for ‘Google pagespeed’ will return ‘Pagespeed Insights’ as the top result. This has created a loop where a stakeholder that has read Google’s announcement would immediately be led to Pagespeed Insights, and most likely plug their own company site into the input field.
What happens next is a story I have heard countless times in developer groups. An ‘All Hands on Deck’ scenerio where someone who is not technically minded sees a score that isn’t 100/100, and is wanting heads to roll. This ineviable and inevitable situation is one I have sat in multiple times, and is one that is a painpoint that not only, I, but many other developers have faced.