What to ask your agency about lazy loading

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. If you are briefing an agency or a freelancer on lazy loading, these questions are worth asking early.

Speed is a feature people notice only in its absence, and then they leave rather than complain. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

Questions worth asking

• Who will actually do this work, and have they done it before?
• How will we know afterwards whether it worked?
• What happens if it needs changing in a year?
• What are you assuming that we have not confirmed?

What a good answer sounds like

Only load what is about to be seen. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

Always reserve the space so nothing jumps. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.

The short version

Real-world numbers from actual visitors matter more than a score produced on a fast laptop. Three things worth confirming about lazy loading before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Only load what is about to be seen — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.