Google Lighthouse Errors and Improving Website User Experience

Google Lighthouse is a powerful tool that helps you identify and fix errors on your website to improve the user experience.

The tool audits your website's performance, accessibility, and best practices, providing actionable recommendations for improvement.

Slow page loads can lead to high bounce rates and lost revenue, which is why optimizing your website's performance is crucial.

A slow page load time of just one second can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.

Improving your website's user experience starts with addressing the errors and warnings flagged by Google Lighthouse.

Google Lighthouse is an open-source, automated auditing tool that scans a web page with an eagle eye. It targets several aspects of the page, like performance, accessibility, SEO, and more.

Google Lighthouse is like your page's report card, and it doesn't hold back any punches. It's essential for a website to get a good grade, as speed and accessibility are not just a luxury, but a necessity.

Google Lighthouse works by performing audits for five main website optimization categories.

It examines how quickly the web page becomes interactive, watches for sudden page shifts, and much more.

The tool will run numerous page audits when you submit a URL, and it will produce a report outlining the page's performance.

You can then use the recommendations from the outcomes to enhance your website.

The automatic tool provides detailed feedback on the areas that require improvement, setting a roadmap for optimizing web performance.

Lighthouse serves more than just developers, and any website owner can use this tool to know more about the functionality and specific steps they can take to improve it.

To run a Google Lighthouse audit, you don't need to be a tech expert. You can do it right in your Chrome browser.

You can install the Google Lighthouse plugin either via the Developer Tools or as a Node module.

Open Developer Tools in your Google Chrome browser by right-clicking on your webpage and selecting ‘Inspect,’ or by pressing ‘Ctrl+Shift+I’ (Windows) or ‘Cmd+Option+I’ (Mac).

To configure your audit, go to the Chrome DevTools Lighthouse option and choose the categories you wish to test, such as Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO.

Click on ‘Generate report’ and Lighthouse will run the audit on the currently active tab.

Review your report, which includes a Lighthouse score, a weighted average of all the performance metrics, giving you a snapshot of your web page’s health.

Running a Lighthouse audit is an automated process that doesn’t impact your website, it just visits your site like any other user.

Google Lighthouse reports are a treasure trove of information about your website's performance. They're like a report card for your site, grading it on various metrics to help you identify areas for improvement.

Each metric in the report represents a different aspect of your website's performance, and together they provide a comprehensive overview of your site's health. The report includes metrics like First Contentful Paint (FCP), Speed Index (SI), Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), and Time to Interactive (TTI), among others.

The report is divided into three main sections: Passed Audits, Audits to Improve, and Failed Audits. Passed Audits show areas where your website met the Google Lighthouse standard, while Audits to Improve highlight areas that need improvement. Failed Audits, on the other hand, indicate areas where your website didn't meet the standard.

Here are some common Lighthouse issues and recommendations for addressing them:

By understanding what each metric represents and addressing common Lighthouse issues, you can improve your website's performance and provide a better user experience.

Improving website performance is crucial for a smooth user experience. A delay of even a second in page load time can spell doom for the best of websites.

To improve website performance, you can use the Lighthouse scoring calculator to understand what thresholds you should be aiming for to achieve a certain Lighthouse performance score. The Opportunities section in the Lighthouse report has detailed suggestions and documentation on how to implement them.

Here are some key areas to focus on:

By focusing on these key areas, you can improve your website's performance and provide a better experience for your users.

Google Lighthouse is a systematic approach to website auditing that examines how quickly a web page becomes interactive, known as the speed index, and watches for sudden page shifts, or cumulative layout shift.

The tool runs numerous page audits when you submit a URL and produces a report outlining the page's performance.

Lighthouse provides detailed feedback on areas that require improvement, setting a roadmap for optimizing web performance.

You can use the recommendations from the outcomes to enhance your website, making it more functional and user-friendly.

This tool is not just for developers, but for any website owner who wants to know more about their website's functionality and take specific steps to improve it.

Google Lighthouse works by performing audits for five main website optimization categories, which helps developers identify areas for improvement.

To improve performance, developers can use the Lighthouse scoring calculator to understand what thresholds to aim for. This tool is a great starting point for any developer looking to optimize their website's performance.

The Opportunities section in the Lighthouse report provides detailed suggestions and documentation on how to implement improvements. This section is a treasure trove of actionable advice for developers.

Developers can also use the Diagnostics section to explore additional guidance on how to further improve performance. This section offers a deeper dive into the technical aspects of website optimization.

Here are some key areas to focus on:

By focusing on these key areas, developers can significantly improve their website's performance and provide a better user experience.

Google Lighthouse divides its audits into five primary categories: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO, and Progressive Web Apps. The top 4 are the most critical for most agencies.

The performance score is a number from 0 to 100 that encapsulates your site's overall performance. Each metric in the report comes with a score, a value, and a description to help you understand what it measures and how your site is doing.

Here are some key metrics to focus on:

Each of these metrics shines a light on a different aspect of your website's performance, and together they provide a comprehensive overview of your site's health.

Google Lighthouse offers five primary categories of audits to help you evaluate your website's performance and identify areas for improvement. These categories are Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO, and Progressive Web Apps.

The Performance category focuses on core web vitals such as the speed index, which measures how quickly content is visually displayed. If your content takes too long to load, it can be frustrating for users.

Accessibility audits scrutinize whether your website is easily accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. These audits check elements like color contrast, correct use of headings, and appropriate labeling.

Best Practices audits help you apply web development best practices, preventing potential issues that could harm your site's security or performance. This is where Google Lighthouse identifies opportunities to improve your website.

SEO audits ensure your site is optimized for search engine visibility, focusing on elements like meta descriptions, crawlability, and HTML tags. This is essential for improving your website's visibility in search engine results.

Google Lighthouse also evaluates progressive web apps, ensuring they meet essential criteria like service worker registration and offline capabilities.

First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures the time from when the page starts loading to when any part of the page's content is rendered on the screen.

Speed Index (SI) measures how quickly the contents of a page are visibly populated, and the lower the score, the better.

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) reflects the time it takes to render the largest content element visible in the viewport.

Time to Interactive (TTI) quantifies how long it takes a page to become fully interactive.

Total Blocking Time (TBT) measures the total amount of time when the main thread was blocked long enough to prevent input responsiveness.

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) quantifies how much unexpected layout shift of visible page content occurs during page load.

Here's a quick rundown of the key metrics:

These metrics shine a light on different aspects of your website's performance, and together they provide a comprehensive overview of your site's health.

Prior to Lighthouse v6, all score curves were based on mobile performance data, which led to artificially inflated desktop scores.

This bug was fixed in Lighthouse v6, which now uses specific desktop scoring, resulting in significantly different scores for desktop.

The metrics scores and perf score are colored according to specific ranges, but desktop scores will be notably different from their mobile counterparts.

You can expect overall changes in your perf score from Lighthouse v5 to v6, but desktop scores will be the most affected.

You can install Lighthouse as a Chrome extension for quick, easy access, or as a Node command line tool for more flexibility and automation.

To get the most out of Google Lighthouse, you should understand the difference between field and lab data. Lab data is collected in a controlled environment and is useful for debugging performance issues, while field data reflects real-world user experiences.

The Lighthouse panel in Chrome's developer tools is your best friend, but don't forget about other browser extensions, like the Chrome Extension Workflow, which can enhance your auditing process.

Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:

If you want to run an audit on a local site or a page behind a firewall, consider using the command line version of Lighthouse. It's perfect for testing before pushing changes live.

To get accurate results, run several audits and look at the median result, as performance can vary due to network conditions, CPU throttling, and cache state.