The Numbers Behind HigherEd RWD - June 2013

Back in January I posted numbers gathered from the HigherEd RWD Directory. The size of the list has more than doubled since then. The bad news? Almost every number has increased (that’s a bad thing). Additional stats since last report includes image count, size and percentage of page weight.

On a side note. Last June the directory had 16 entries. Over the course of the year we added 100 responsive/adaptive sites.

HigherEd RWD Sites: 116

Desktop

I tested with a browser width of ~1200px. Load time is based on a combination of tests from SW Michigan and Northern Indiana. Distance to hosts could definitely be a factor.

  • Load Time: 3.4 seconds
  • Requests: 60.3
  • Size: 1.7 MB
  • Images 34.7
  • Image Size 1.3 MB
  • Image % of total page weight 77%
  • CSS Files: 6.7
  • CSS Size: 101.0 KB
  • JS Files: 11.8
  • JS Size: 193.1 KB

Small Screen

These numbers were gathered using a desktop browser at a narrow width (~320px) and an iPhone 5 UA string to attempt a simulation of a mobile device. For this reason, “load time” should be taken with an extremely large grain of salt.

  • Load time: 3.04 seconds
  • Requests: 56.3
  • Size: 1.6 MB
  • Images 31.4
  • Image Size 1.2 MB
  • Image % of total page weight 74%
  • CSS Files: 6.6
  • CSS Size: 101.2 kb
  • JS Files: 11.8
  • JS Size: 217.7 KB

Mobile Sites

I found 47 dedicated “mobile” sites from the list of 116 RWD sites in the directory to compare numbers. The focus here was on size, not load time.

  • Load Time: 1.62 seconds
  • Size: 180.4 kb