The official documentation for Core Web Vitals has recently been updated, incorporating new information regarding Interaction to Next Paint (INP) scores. This update explains the rationale behind the chosen scoring thresholds for INP, allowing webmasters and developers to better understand this crucial performance metric. The documentation now highlights the importance of INP in measuring how quickly users can interact with a web page after navigating to it. 

By providing clarity on these thresholds, the update aims to help developers improve user experience by optimising the speed and responsiveness of their websites. As web performance continues to play a significant role in search engine rankings and user satisfaction, understanding INP is vital for anyone involved in web development and design.

 

Interaction to Next Paint (INP)

Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a newly introduced metric that officially became part of Core Web Vitals in the Spring of 2024. It measures the time it takes for a website to respond to user interactions, such as clicks, taps, or keyboard presses—whether from physical keyboards or on-screen devices.

According to the official Web.dev documentation, INP evaluates the latency of all interactions a user makes with a webpage and provides a single value that represents the upper limit of response times for nearly all interactions. A lower INP indicates that the page is able to respond quickly and consistently to the majority of user actions.

INP differs from the now-retired First Input Delay (FID) metric, which only assessed the delay of the first interaction. INP is regarded as a more effective measure since it offers a clearer picture of the overall user experience on a webpage.

 

INP Core Web Vitals Score Thresholds

The primary update to the documentation focuses on clarifying the speed performance thresholds that categorize user experience as poor, needing improvement, or good.

One key consideration in determining these scoring thresholds was the disparity between desktop and mobile devices. High INP scores are typically easier to achieve on desktops due to factors such as superior network speeds and device capabilities. However, since user experience should not depend on the device being used, the decision was made to establish a single metric based on mobile devices rather than creating different thresholds for various types of devices.

 

The new documentation states:

“Mobile and desktop usage often differ significantly in terms of device capabilities and network reliability, which affects the ‘achievability’ criteria. This suggests that separate thresholds should be considered for each device type.

Nonetheless, users’ expectations regarding a good or poor experience are not influenced by the device they use, even if the achievability criteria vary. Therefore, the recommended thresholds for Core Web Vitals are uniform across devices, simplifying their understanding.

Additionally, classifying devices into specific categories can be complicated. Should classifications be based on form factor, processing power, or network conditions? Maintaining the same thresholds helps avoid this complexity.

As mobile devices generally have more limitations, most of the thresholds are established based on what is achievable for mobile. While this approach primarily reflects mobile thresholds rather than a universal standard for all device types, it is a less pressing concern since mobile traffic constitutes a significant portion of most websites’ overall traffic.”

 

The following scoring thresholds were established by Chrome:

– Scores below 200 milliseconds (ms) are classified as “good.”

– Scores ranging from 200 ms to 500 ms are labelled as “needs improvement.”

– Scores exceeding 500 ms are considered “poor.”

 

Lower End Devices Were Considered

Chrome prioritised selecting achievable metrics when determining the thresholds for Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This was essential as many users access the internet via lower-end mobile devices.

 

The team noted: 

“We focused on the achievability of passing the INP threshold for lower-end mobile devices, which account for a significant share of site visits. This analysis further validated the appropriateness of a 200 ms threshold.

Considering the 100 ms threshold supported by research on user experience quality and the criteria for achievability, we determined that 200 ms is a reasonable standard for what constitutes a good user experience.”

 

Most Popular Sites Influenced INP Thresholds

The updated documentation offers an insightful perspective on the achievability of Interaction to Next Paint (INP) scores, measured in milliseconds (ms). The Chrome team analysed the performance of the top 10,000 websites, which account for a significant portion of internet traffic, to determine appropriate thresholds for poor performance scores.

Their findings revealed that these popular websites found it challenging to achieve performance scores under 300 ms. According to the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX), which provides data on real-world user experiences, 55% of visits to these sites were around the 300 ms mark. Consequently, the Chrome team needed to set a higher threshold that was more attainable for these frequently visited sites.

 

The documentation states: 

“When examining the top 10,000 sites that make up a large majority of internet traffic, a more nuanced picture emerges. 

On mobile, a 300 ms “poor” threshold would classify most popular sites as “poor,” stretching our achievability criteria. In contrast, a 500 ms threshold aligns better with the performance of 10-30% of these sites. It’s important to note that the 200 ms “good” threshold is still demanding for these sites; however, with 23% of sites meeting this threshold on mobile, it meets our minimum pass rate criteria of 10%.

Therefore, we conclude that a 200 ms score is a reasonable “good” threshold for most sites, while a score greater than 500 ms is an acceptable “poor” threshold.”

 

Barry Pollard, a Web Performance Developer Advocate at Google Chrome and co-author of the documentation, provided further context in a LinkedIn discussion:

“We’ve made significant progress on INP over the past year, more than we anticipated. However, achieving less than 200 ms will remain a challenge for low-end mobile devices for some time. While high-end mobile devices are performing exceptionally well, the improvements in low-end devices are not keeping pace.”

 

A Deeper Understanding Of INP Scores

The updated documentation clarifies how Chrome selects achievable metrics, providing clearer insights into the relatively new Interaction to Next Paint (INP) Core Web Vital metric. This information aims to demystify the scoring process and make it more accessible to users.

 

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