Team Roundup #6: Our Best Finds From Last Month!

Team Testomato is always on the hunt for good reads and cool tools! We’ve pulled together another team roundup of our favorite web development finds from last month.

For the next time you have a break at the office, here are some of the most interesting articles and tools we discovered:

The “Web Application” Myth

A must-read from Christian Heilmann about building for the modern web and how it doesn’t always come down to simply choosing the “right” technology or framework.

 For Impatient Web Users, an Eye Blink Is Just Too Long to Wait

How long is too long for web users? The New York Times takes a look at how the quest for speed dominates today’s internet use. Gone are the days of the 2-second rule! In fact, a page that takes even 400 ms (or the time it takes to blink) is t00 long, according to Google engineers.

There were a lot interesting (and slightly scary) stats that you should keep in mind when working on a project.

Here were some of our favorites:

• 4 out of 5 online users will click away if a video loading stalls.
• You could lose a visitor if you’re more than 250 ms slower than the competition.
• The average expectations for a page to load is 4 seconds or less.
• Bing and Google return results in less than a second.

Head over to the full article to read more.

Font Loading Revisited with Font Events

Loading fonts plays a big role in your website’s performance! Take a look at this great tutorial from Scott Jehl at Filament Group explaining one of the fastest techniques you can use to load web fonts.

Four Years Of Remote Working 

Are you working remotely or thinking about making a change? Make sure you do it right. User experience agency Simple as Milk shares their most important lessons from four years of working as a remote team.

Here’s a quick overview:

• Trust your team to manage themselves and their deadlines.
• A trustworthy team is the best business investment.
• The tools you use make a big difference.
• Take advantage of the adventure around you.
• Balance social media with real-life experiences.
• Make sure you see each other in person.

You can read the whole post, here.

Improve Validation Errors with Adaptive Messages

A useful post about how to make it easier for your users to recover from form errors when they happen (because they will). Baymard Institute conducts large-scale research studies on e-commerce usability, and this article takes an in-depth look at their research about the way the wording of validation error messages plays a significant role in a user’s error recovery experience and how “Adaptive Error Messages” can help.

Tools that Inspired Us Last Month

Looking for some new sources of inspiration? Check out what got us excited in February.

• Swiper: A free, modern mobile touch slider aimed at providing the best and simplest experience. Designed for iOS, but also works on Android, Windows Phone 8, and modern desktop browsers.
• Reapp: A collection of modules to help you build more powerful, hybrid apps faster with React.
• Plyr: A simple, accessible, and customizable HTML5 media player (and it loads full-screen instantly).
• js2coffee: JavaScript compiler js2coffee has been rewritten to be faster and sports a new design.

What We’re Writing About

If you enjoyed this roundup, you might enjoy these posts from our own blog last month!

• Why We Removed Our Feedback Forum: A look at how we decided to remove our feedback forum and why it was the best choice for Testomato.
• How to Remove Testomato from Your Access Logs: We know uptime monitoring and testing can fill up your server logs with raw data! Find out how to remove Testomato from your access logs.

What have you been reading lately? We’d love to hear your suggestions! 

Share with us in the comments or on Facebook. You can also find us @testomatocom.