```json
{
    "title": "The Three Pillars of Web Performance",
    "url": "https://performancezen.com/2012/01/24/the-three-pillars-of-web-performance/",
    "datePublished": "2012-01-24",
    "dateModified": "2022-03-31",
    "language": "en-US",
    "description": "Had a great conversation with a colleague today. She and I were bouncing around some ideas, and I listed my top 3 topics in Web performance as \"Speed, Revenue, and…",
    "author": "spierzchala",
    "publisher": "Performance Zen"
}
```

# The Three Pillars of Web Performance

![image](http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2626/3838923510_caa016ec03_m.jpg)

Had a great conversation with a colleague today. She and I were bouncing around some ideas, and I listed my top 3 topics in Web performance as "Speed, Revenue, and Experience". She was quick to correct me.

**"No, not revenue, conversions".**

She was right. Just last week, I [talked about](https://performancezen.com/2012/01/20/the-nomenclature-problem-or-whats-in-a-name/)how critical it is to convert *visitors* into *customers*. Doing this in some businesses doesn't mean that there is any revenue, but the goal remains the same.

Speed is the one everything **thinks** is the same as Web Performance. It's not. It's the *don't be that guy* measure of Web Performance, the one that can be easily quantified and put on display. But *performance* for an online application is so much more than raw speed.

Experience is the hardest of the three to measure, because what it is depends on who you ask. Is it design, flow, ease of use, clarity, or none of these things? But a fast application can still make people cranky. There are online applications that are clearly designed to make the customer do things the way the vendor demands and these are the ones that make you go "Why am I here?".

Now, can all the metrics that measure Web Performance be distilled to **Speed**, **Conversions**, and **Experience**? If you stepped away from the very product specific terms the Web Performance industry uses every day, what would describe the final, bottled, and served essence of Web Performance?