Name That Script!

A presentation at An Event Apart Boston in June 2018 in Boston, MA, USA by Trent Walton

Third-Party Any request made by a webpage coming from an external URL

Third-Party Scripts and Services http://trentwalton.com

http://trentwalton.com Network Requests Panel https://trentwalton.com/style.css https://trentwalton.com/mediocrejavascript.js Third-Party Scripts and Services

http://trentwalton.com Network Requests Panel https://trentwalton.com/style.css https://trentwalton.com/mediocrejavascript.js https://p.typekit.net/p.css Third-Party Scripts and Services

http://trentwalton.com Third-Party Scripts and Services

Third-Party Any request made by a webpage coming from an external URL Any resource included with a webpage that the site owner doesn’t explicitly control

http://trentwalton.com Network Requests Panel https://trentwalton.com/style.css https://trentwalton.com/mediocrejavascript.js https://evilcorp.com/ssssshhhhh.js Third-Party Scripts and Services

Advertising Ad networks, Ad content Comments Disqus, etc. Essential Tag managers, fonts, etc. Customer Interaction Live chat, feedback widgets Analytics Site tra ﬃ c, trackers, etc. AB Testing Maxymiser, Optimizely, etc. Social Media Embeds, sign up, share buttons CDN Cloudflare, AWS, etc. Third-Party Uses

Data / Decision Drivers Analytics + AB Testing Content CDNs for Fonts, Images, Videos, etc. Income Ads, Analytics, Trackers Functionality Comments, Chat, Tag Managers, IFrame embeds Third-Party Benefits

User Experience Poor Performance (Load Time + Processor Lag), Inconsistent UI Privacy Customer/User Trust, Organizational Reputation, Data protection Third-Party Concerns

Image Comps Frontend Performance A11Y RWD

Image Comps Frontend Performance A11Y RWD Design Systems

Image Comps Frontend Performance A11Y RWD Design Systems Command Line

Image Comps Frontend Performance A11Y RWD Design Systems Command Line Third-Parties

Welcome 1 2 3
<ul role="tablist"> <li> <a href="#first-tab" role="tab" aria- selected="true" aria-controls="first-tab">

CSS PNG JS JPG WOFF CSS JPG Shrink-O-Matic WOFF CSS JPG WOFF

Buttons Fonts Footer Forms Grid   Header Navigation Tables Patterns Primary Secondary Buttons Use only one primary button per component.

Analytics CMS Ad Network AB Testing Comments E-Commerce

Analytics CMS Ad Network AB Testing Comments E-Commerce Trackers Social Sign Business A

CSS PNG JS JPG WOFF Analytics Social AB Testing Ad Network

Analytics v2.0.1 v2.0.2 Ad Network v2.0.3 AB Testing

Delivering a performant, accessible, responsive, scalable website isn’t enough: I also need to consider the impact of third-party scripts.

twitter.com/csswizardry/status/915886339391918083

Analyze & Itemize on the Web Categories & Types Know Industry Averages Impact UX, Perf, Privacy Understand IRL Benefits Take Action

https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1003979608042164230

Remarketing! Thank you for your purchase

Weather App advertisement Spatula! Shop Now

I’m not evil. But Trent. While I’m here… I was looking at your browser history and wondered if you still wanted that panini press.

Browsing History cheesysandwiches.com facebook.com/political-thing facebook.com/timeline twitter.com/moment amazon.com/panini

Image Comps Frontend Performance A11Y RWD Design Systems Command Line Third-Parties Privacy

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-developers/ Privacy & GDPR Resources

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-developers/ Privacy by Design (PbD) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/07/privacy-by-design-framework/ Privacy & GDPR Resources

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-developers/ Privacy Impact Assessment https://www.gsa.gov/reference/gsa-privacy-program/privacy-impact- assessments-pia Privacy by Design (PbD) https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/07/privacy-by-design-framework/ Privacy & GDPR Resources

Analytics Categories Comments Social Media Advertising

Categories Advertising Ad networks, Ad content Comments Disqus, etc. Essential Tag managers, fonts, etc. Customer Interaction Live chat, feedback widgets Analytics Google, Chartbeat, etc. AB Testing Maxymiser, Optimizely, etc. Social Media Embeds, sign up, share buttons CDN Cloudflare, AWS, etc.

View Source? view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <link href="https://use.typekit.net/iwu3yfx.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/jquery.min.js"></script> </head> <body>

View Source? view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="https://static.nytimes.com/favicon.ico" /> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144 × 144" href="https://static.nytimes.com/images/icons/ios-ipad-144x144.png" /> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114 × 114" href="https://static.nytimes.com/images/icons/ios-iphone-114x144.png" /> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="https://static.nytimes.com/images/icons/ios-default-homescreen-57x57.png" /> <meta name="sourceApp" content="nyt-v5" /> <meta id="applicationName" name="applicationName" content="homepage" /> <meta id="foundation-build-id" name="foundation-build-id" content="" /> <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.nytimes.com" /> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml" /> <link rel="alternate" media="only screen and (max-width: 640px)" href="http://mobile.nytimes.com" /> <link rel="alternate" media="handheld" href="http://mobile.nytimes.com" /> <meta name="robots" content="noarchive,noodp,noydir" /> <meta name="description" content="The New York Times: Find breaking news, multimedia, reviews & opinion on Washington, business, sports, movies, travel, books, jobs, education, real estate, cars & more at nytimes.com." /> <meta name="CG" content="Homepage" /> <meta name="SCG" content="" />

website.har (JSON) HTTP Archive format HAR

Save as HAR Copy Save All As Har Open in New Tab Start Performance Analysis
http://trentwalton.com
Network Requests Panel
https://trentwalton.com/style.css https://trentwalton.com/mediocrejavascript.js

By Simon Hearne requestmap.webperf.tools

Request Map for trentwalton.com requestmap.webperf.tools

Request Map for amazon.com requestmap.webperf.tools

Request Map for amazon.com Request Map CSV Export

Third-Party Requests across top 46 US sites

213 Third-Party Domain URLs
domains, not requests

Third-party domain
of top 46 sites
% of top 46 sites doubleclick.net 38 82.6% facebook.com 32 69.6% google-analytics.com 27 58.7% googlesyndication.com 25 54.3% googleadservices.com 24 52.2% cloudfront.net 20 43.5% googleapis.com 20 43.5% scorecardresearch.com 18 39.1% 2mdn.net 17 37.0% adnxs.com 17 37.0% fastly.net 17 37.0% akamaihd.net 16 34.8% amazonaws.com 16 34.8% Third-Party Prevalence https://trentwalton.com/tag/Third-Party/

Alexa Site Third-Party Domains nytimes.com 64 washingtonpost.com 63 Metropcs.mobi 59 cnn.com 57 ebay.com 49 msn.com 45 microsoft.com 43 wikia.com 42 salesforce.com 40 bestbuy.com 38 imdb.com 37 twitch.tv 37 espn.com 36 wordpress.com 32 target.com 29 Volume Per Site

Which sites had the most? News nytimes.com washingtonpost.com cnn.com msn.com
espn.com Shopping ebay.com bestbuy.com target.com amazon.com walmart.com

News & Shopping Ads Analytics CDN Ratings Comments Social Feedback

Further Reading trentwalton.com/notes/2018/01/23/third-party-script-prevalence-on-alexa-top-50.html

Vector Media Group Matt Weinberg Lee Goldberg

Analytics Ad Network What’s a Tag Manager? AB Testing

Add Snippets view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <script src=“Tag Manager Script Here”></script> </head> <body> <noscript><iframe>Tag Manager Script</iframe></noscript>

Pandora’s Box? view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <script src=“Tag Manager Script Here”></script> </head> <body> <noscript><iframe>Tag Manager Script</iframe></noscript>

Get Organized view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <script src=“Tag Manager Script Here”></script> </head> <body> <noscript><iframe>Tag Manager Script</iframe></noscript>

“An analytics strategy should be part of the initial development and design process […]”
—Lee Goldberg

It’s too easy to add scripts. view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <script src=“Tag Manager Script Here”></script> </head> <body> <noscript><iframe>Tag Manager Script</iframe></noscript>

“We work towards a global maximum versus a local maximum. Small, hyper-focused changes may seem good at the time…

but we have to be mindful of the overall quality of the user-experience and integrity of the brand.” —Matt Weinberg

Ads and analytics work together to help our clients. view-source:http://trentwalton.com
<html lang=“en-us”> <head> <script src=“Tag Manager Script Here”></script> </head> <body> <noscript><iframe>Tag Manager Script</iframe></noscript>

1 Determine value to the business/website 2 Avoid redundant scripts and services 3 Fit within established performance budget Define Standards 4 Comply with organizational privacy policy

Styles Components Voice Perf Third-Parties Inventory AB Testing - Optimizely 300kb WebPage Test Analytics - Chartbeat 73kb WebPage Test Comments - Disqus 120kb WebPage Test Ads - Doubleclick 100kb WebPage Test Ads - Adnxs 80kb WebPage Test Third-Party Standards Our goal is to document and regularly evaluate the value of third-party inclusions, optimizing benefits while minimizing the UX/Performance impact. Document Standards

Analytics Ad Network AB Testing Account For Third-Parties During Prototyping

Audit Third-Parties Third-Party Size Budgeted Issue Optimizely 365kb 200kb Perf Budget Maxymizer 190kb Redundant Outbrain 645b 1kb Chartbeat 700b 1kb Analytics - Google 26kb 50kb Ads - Doubleclick 169kb 100kb Perf Budget Ads - Adnxs 80kb 100kb Ads - Rubicon Project 90kb 100kb

4 Third-Parties 24 HTTP Requests 2 Megabytes Competitor B Competitive Analysis Our Site 12 Third-Parties 39 HTTP Requests 1.2 Megabytes 35 Third-Parties 78 HTTP Requests 3 Megabytes Competitor A

Gather Compelling Results wpostats.com/2017/03/03/bbc-load-abandonment.html

Use Real User Monitoring (RUM) soasta.com/blog/what-if-analysis-predictive-analytics/

“Everything should have a value, because everything has a cost.”
—Tim Kadlec

Slides! Links! https://noti.st/trentwalton https://speakerdeck.com/trentwalton

People to Follow / Who Helped Andy Davies   Simon Hearne
Matt Weinberg
Lee Goldberg
Harry Roberts
Aral Balkan
Laura Kalbag
Dave Rupert

Links From Slides https://twitter.com/csswizardry/status/915886339391918083 https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1003979608042164230 https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Privacy_by_design https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-developers/ https://www.ghostery.com https://calibreapp.com https://speedcurve.com https://www.dareboost.com https://har.tech https://www.charlesproxy.com http://requestmap.webperf.tools/ https://trentwalton.com/tag /Third-Party https://better.fyi/trackers https://trentwalton.com/notes/2018/01/23/third-party-script-prevalence-on-alexa-top-50.html https://wpostats.com/2017/03/03/bbc-load-abandonment.html https://www.webpagetest.org

Tools I Use Ghostery
Calibre
SpeedCurve
DareBoost
HAR.tech
Charles App

Trent Walton
@trentwalton

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How many third-party scripts are loading on our web pages these days? How can we objectively measure the value of these (advertising, a/b testing, analytics, etc.) scripts—considering their impact on web performance, user experience, and business goals? We’ve learned to scrutinize content hierarchy, browser support, and page speed as part of the design and development process. Similarly, Trent will share recent experiences and explore ways to evaluate and discuss the inclusion of 3rd-party scripts.

Resources

The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.

Buzz and feedback

Here’s what was said about this presentation on social media.

"Delivering a performant, accessible, responsive, scalable website isn't enough. I also need to consider the impact of third-party scripts." - @TrentWalton #aea #aeabos #WebDesign #webdev pic.twitter.com/XQ6XtaMe5F
— Tim Woodruff (@woodruffgraphic) June 26, 2018
Love @TrentWalton's talk on leveraging third-party scripts with the user's online experience. Makes perfect sense the discussion of scripts, analytics, tracking, & marketing be included at the beginning of the design & dev process. #aeabos pic.twitter.com/4e5iWXMJq1
— Niki Blaker (@NikiBlaker) June 26, 2018
Not gonna lie...I was skeptical when I saw that @TrentWalton's talk was on third-party scripts, but talking about performance, analytics, and third-party scripts at the beginning of a design process makes so much sense. #aeabos #aea2018
— Kate Farrar (@katefarrar) June 26, 2018
.@TrentWalton’s talk at #AEABOS is opening my eyes to the many ways 3rd-party scripts can undo our hard work optimizing our sites to be lean & performant. Not only is Trent detailing the problem, he’s also showing how we can approach stakeholders to discuss solutions.
— zeldman (@zeldman) June 26, 2018

Name That Script!

of top 46 sites

Link for this presentation:

HTML code for embedding:

Share on social media:

Resources

This is your website on tag managers tweet

Cookies vs trackers tweet

GDPR

Privacy by Design

GDPR for Web Developers

Privacy by Design Framework

Ghostery

Har.tech

Charles app

Request Map

My posts on third parties

Better.fyi trackers list

WPO Stats

Web Page Test

Buzz and feedback