Create benchmarks for evaluating performance

[nielsbom]

(Somewhat related to #5 )

@jokroese told me there's a (strong?) preference for having all actual points rendered on the map, even when zoomed out.

I'd like to ask some questions about this and also approach this from a (performance) accessibility perspective. This kind of accessibility considers the technology that people use to access the site, so mostly their computing device and their internet connection.

(I do think other kinds of accessibility are equally important btw)

An assumption I have is that we prefer it if more people can use the the site, than less.

What attributes of "having all points rendered on the map" are (most) important?

• Is it the visual aspect?
• Is it a feeling we want to evoke when visitors view the map?
• Do the creators of the map want to have a feeling of "completeness"?

What devices do we want people to be able to use QTM on?

• Phones, tablets, computers?
• What kind of devices do we want users to still be able to reasonably use QTM?
• Are those devices mostly CPU bound or memory bound?

On what kind of internet connection do we want users to still be able to reasonably use QTM?

• What is the average speed?
• What is the average latency?
• Wifi or non-wifi connections?
• For non-wifi connections: people on limited data plans?

Suggestion

Once there's a baseline performance budget wrt device and internet connection we can (and imho should) start testing QTM with that budget in mind.

[nielsbom]

Alex Russel has written a great deal on frontend performance and how it has created and continues to create inequality.

[jokroese]

It would be great if @queeringthemap (Lucas) could share some data on the types of devices visiting QtM. Do you have that info Lucas?

[jokroese]

Beyond that, there's a question of if the thousand of points is actually much of a performance issue. We haven't done any quantification of that, so at this point, we don't know if it's a bottleneck.

[queeringthemap]

What attributes of "having all points rendered on the map" are (most) important?

• the visual impact of the scale and distribution of pins is most important. my biggest concern from day one, has been that clustering pulls the outliers into the mean, which means rural and less active areas on QTM were getting erased at high scale. But, as the site grows to have users in more places with lower bandwidth, I am open to a display model that is more accessible, even if it means losing a few of the outliers.

What devices do we want people to be able to use QTM on?

• the vast majority of users use mobile devices, and I have added a few analytic screenshots here to give you an idea. Optimizing for mobile and low bandwidth would be amazing.

On what kind of internet connection do we want users to still be able to reasonably use QTM?

• as accessible as possible on lower bandwidth would be ideal. I'm not well versed enough on average speed and latency, but super open to your suggestions.

[jokroese]

losing a few of the outliers

We can display pins (or leave them out) based on how densely they are spaced. That means we don't have to lose any outliers, just dropping pins from within dense areas like cities.

[jokroese]

As I see it, this issue has two concerns: one about what are the appropriate benchmarks to use for developing QtM and another about how to visualise so many points.

I propose we keep this issue focused on benchmarking and move discussions of the ways to visualise so many points to this issue #9. I'll copy the relevant points across there.