Tips and Methods for Enhancing and Tracking Interaction with Next Paint
Google recently announced a major change to its web vitals, introducing the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric as one of the three Core Web Vitals metrics. This new metric will replace the older First Input Delay metric and will become a ranking factor on March 12, 2024. This change marks a significant milestone in the world of web development and has important implications for website owners and developers.
So, what exactly is Interaction to Next Paint? INP measures how quickly a website responds to user interactions. For example, if a visitor clicks on a button and it takes a significant amount of time for the updated page content to render, it represents a poor user experience. INP specifically measures the time between a user interaction and the next time the browser can update the content on the screen. The more CPU processing required to handle the interaction and display the new content, the worse the INP score will be.
Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals are indeed a ranking factor. This means that if your website performs poorly on the INP score, it may rank lower than competitors that excel in all three web vitals metrics. To obtain a good score, the INP should be below 200 milliseconds, while a delay of over 500 milliseconds is considered poor. As the INP worsens between the Good and Poor thresholds, your website’s SEO will gradually be impacted.
But how does Google collect data on how fast your website responds to user interactions? The data is collected from real Chrome users as part of the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX). This report provides valuable insights into your website’s performance and allows you to identify areas for improvement.
So, how can you test Interaction to Next Paint on your website? Google provides a free Core Web Vitals test that allows you to check how well your website performs on the INP metric and other Core Web Vitals. By simply entering your page URL and waiting for the test result, you can access real user INP data in the Web Vitals tab. This data is derived from the Google CrUX report and provides a 25-week trend to help you understand whether your page is improving or worsening over time.
However, the data provided by Google may not be as nuanced as you would like, and it can be challenging to identify specific pages impacted by slow Interaction to Next Paint due to the page grouping mechanism. To gain a broader view of different page groups on your website, you can check the Core Web Vitals tab in Google Search Console. This tab will show you how many pages are affected by INP issues or do not pass the Core Web Vitals assessment.
For more in-depth insights, a dedicated real-user Core Web Vitals monitoring tool like DebugBear can be extremely helpful. DebugBear provides detailed Core Web Vitals data across your entire website and updates as soon as a change is rolled out. With this tool, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your website’s performance and identify areas that require optimization.
To improve your INP scores, it is essential to understand the three components of INP: input delay, processing time, and presentation delay. The performance tab in Chrome DevTools provides valuable information on how long interactions on your page took and what was responsible for the CPU processing. This data can be challenging to interpret, so involving a developer may be necessary. By optimizing third-party code, JavaScript code, and scheduling CPU tasks more efficiently, you can reduce the time that interactions are blocked and improve your INP scores.
You may also notice that interactions take longer during the initial loading process of your website. This is due to various background tasks that run while setting up the page. DebugBear offers a breakdown of how fast interactions are at different stages and how frequently interactions occur during these time periods, allowing you to identify areas for improvement.
If your website supports the Long Animation Frames API, you can even see specific scripts and JavaScript functions causing slow interactions for your visitors. This level of detail can greatly enhance your ability to optimize your website’s performance.
To optimize your code and test interactions on your website, it is crucial to know which elements users interact with most frequently and which interactions often result in slow INP. While this data is not available through Google CrUX reports, a dedicated Core Web Vitals monitoring tool like DebugBear can collect this information for you. With the ability to filter data by page, device type, and other factors, you can gain valuable insights into how visitors experience your website and receive targeted advice on improving Interaction to Next Paint.
To stay on top of your Core Web Vitals over time, it is recommended to use a real user monitoring (RUM) solution like DebugBear. By continuously measuring your web vitals and receiving detailed reports, you can deliver a better website experience and improve your rankings in Google. Installing the DebugBear analytics snippet allows you to gain valuable insight into your visitor experiences and avoid the 28-day delay that comes with Google’s web vitals data.
In conclusion, the introduction of the Interaction to Next Paint metric as one of the Core Web Vitals metrics represents a significant change in the web development landscape. Website owners and developers must now focus on improving their INP scores to ensure a positive user experience and maintain high rankings on Google. With the help of tools like DebugBear, optimizing interactions and monitoring Core Web Vitals becomes more accessible, allowing businesses to deliver fast and efficient websites that meet user expectations.
