If a visitor to your site thinks the page has finished loading, they’ll naturally try to interact with the page elements. However, if the site isn’t interactive when the user believes it should be, they’ll either be frustrated with the slow loading speed or assume that the page is broken altogether. Neither scenario is good for your business or for building customer loyalty. This issue is what TTI (Time to Interactive) aims to resolve.
TTI Defined
TTI measures how long it takes for a page to become fully interactive for a user. There are 3 conditions a page needs to meet before it’s considered fully interactive:
- The page displays the useful content measured by FCP (First Contentful Paint)
- Event handlers are registered for most visible page elements
- The page responds to user interactions within 50 milliseconds
Ideally, retailers should strive to minimize the difference between FCP and TTI in order to create a quick and seamless experience for their customers. When there is a noticeable difference, it should be apparent to the user which elements are fully interactive and which ones haven’t finished loading yet.
How to Measure TTI
The TTI is measured from the time the page begins loading to when its main sub-resources have loaded and can quickly respond to user interactions. Because of this, TTI is best measured in the lab using tools like a Lighthouse performance audit or a WebPageTest.
When you get your report, here’s how to interpret your TTI score:
- 0 to 3.8 seconds: Fast
- 3.9 to 7.3 seconds: Moderate
- Over 7.3 seconds: Slow
Ways to Boost TTI Score
First, check the Opportunities section of your Lighthouse performance report. This performance audit will highlight the most pressing issues and make recommendations to optimize your overall page speed.
After following the recommended fixes in the report, you can take steps to optimize JavaScript on your site and double-check that your page reacts quickly when a user tries to interact with it. You can try:
- Reducing JavaScript execution time
- Minimizing main-thread work
- Removing unused JavaScript
- Reducing unnecessary third-party code
- Keeping request counts low to avoid slow loading times
More Performance Optimization Tips
There are countless reasons why your site might be running slowly or underperforming. If you’re not sure where to start troubleshooting, connect with a Wagento developer to work out the root cause of the problem. We can help you devise a customized solution that will get your site up and running smoothly in no time!
