Tripp Fenderson

Don’t take it from me—read what Fred Wilson, who spoke on Tuesday at Widget Web Expo, has to say on the topic.

The widgets (and the javascript I put on this blog) slow down the page load times considerably. And they are distracting to many of the readers. I imagine if I took a poll, about 2/3 of my readers would vote for widgetless sidebars.

I take issue with widgets, along similar lines of thinking as Fred -- specifically: stupid name, noise, and implementation.

1. Stupid name—Enough said.

2. Noise—In my experience, both professional site managers and bloggers fail to ask the tough questions before adding a widget to their site.

Questions like these must be asked:

* Will this widget provide support for my site’s content or add content that my customers want?
If not, why is it there? What purpose does it serve? Have you asked your customers what they want?

* Is this the best place for my widget or will its presence here distract from the goals of a page?
If the widget serves a stated goal, fine—but test and retest its performance. If it doesn’t serve a specific goal on a page, consider moving it elsewhere or leaving it off altogether.

* Will this widget impact the delivery of my site’s content?
Test, test, test BEFORE you implement it. Too many sites add new “features” without giving consideration of a customer’s experience—which brings me to point #3.

3. Implementation—Most vendors and other widget providers will say silly things like “all you need to do it paste 2 lines of JavaScript to your site and you’re done”. What they fail to tell you is that they often link back to large .js files/libraries or other server processes that are unstable or not scaled properly, resulting in a slowdown of your web site. What’s more, they add another DNS lookup to your page, slowing things down even further. This leads to a degradation in the overall experience your site offers, which online, is a key factor in encouraging return visits.

As an example: Two days ago, I evaluated a web site’s home page because of complaints of “slowness”. My review turned up 35 calls to external JavaScript files from various third-party’s widgets requiring 12 additional DNS lookups. Ouch!

By my calculations, the widgets added an additional 242k to the page. I can’t imagine what that experience is like to someone on dial-up. As to whether those widgets add value to that page, I’ll just say, “that’s subjective” but IMHO, I think the page suffers from bloat. There’s nothing there that wouldn’t be better served on a topically focused page instead of the home page of the site.