NDA.ORG -- Notre Dame Academy
A Performance Improvement Problem
When they contacted me, we could not get a reading in the performance test environment because it timed out. After asking for a small change we were able to see the site could be repaired and was suffering from several poor implementations. While a paid theme allows someone to drive their content toward a certain look, bad implementation, allowing full-screen embedded movies on the home screen made the site hard to open. Web hosting was also an issue although the team supporting the site was solid, they did not provide a WordPress tuned environment.
Improved Hosting + Performance Tuning
Bringing the site into my hosting platform, tracking down many issues from missing images to adding image compression; with small incremental improvements I was able to achieve and maintain A level performance for Yahoo YSlow and Google PageSpeed rulesets.
The Project
The Problem
The customer was faced with an issue with their website, just at the time which they were recruiting new students. They learned that students in Europe and Africa were unable to view the website.
Our Solution
It took a few weeks to deliver a solution. The load time will shift as content changes on the website. I am a technical resource to the customer, so the types of content will affect performance. I believe I can accomplish much more for this website; this success met the initial need.
Initial Improvement Highlights
- Shaving 2.0 sec off of fully loaded time
- Reducing number of requests from 145 to 44*
Accomplishments include:
- Improve Database Performance
- Image compression (lossless)
- Minifying web files
- Replace images with SVG logos
- Improved caching (Browser & CDN)
Design Details
The current site needs a redesign. I am working with their last site theme called Enfold. This theme is the manufacturer’s base theme and they will continue to support it.
Site Details
Description:
Platform: WordPress with Enfold Theme
URL: https://nda.org/
Notre Dame Academy is a widely recognized school in my region, attracting girls locally and internationally to their private academy.
This was a highly visible project and was a foot in the door for the company hosting and delivering the design, website, user acceptance testing, and content on schedule.