It is not always easy to understand which are the important aspects to focus our attention on in the work of optimizing the user experience of the site: for this reason, Google has decided to launch a new project, called Web Vitals, which aims to be a unified guide to essential quality signals to deliver a great user experience on the web.
Google’s Web Vitals project
The program was described by Ilya Grigorik, Web Performance Engineer, on Chromium’s blog, which first of all recalls that optimization for the quality of the user experience is the key to the long-term success of any website.
Over time, Google has developed many metrics and useful tools to help business owners, marketers and developers identify opportunities to improve everything related to the UX, also through collaboration with millions of web developers and site owners.
Lots of tools do not ease measurements
We can mention for instance Lighthouse, Chrome Devtools, Pagespeed Insights, Speed Report in the Search Console, which are definitely useful and valid. However, the abundance of metrics and tools can make it challenging to keep up, understand the operation and interpret all the data provided, and it consequently complicates the decision-making process on where to focus your efforts as a priority.
The Vitals Web initiative aims to simplify the analysis and help sites focus on metrics that matter most, called Core Web Vitals. If measuring the quality of the user experience has many nuances to it and some aspects are site-specific and context-specific, Google has identified a common set of key signals for all web experiences.
What Core Web Vitals are
Core Web Vitals, in fact, apply to all web pages, must be measured by all site owners and are displayed on all Google tools. Each of these parameters represents a distinct aspect of the UX, is measurable on the field and reflects the real experience of a critical user-centered outcome.