When can the User Start Reading the page above the fold?

Web Performance Discuss Test Results
1

Hi,

Does the Waterfall tell me when the page becomes readable to the user? If so how and where?

I’ve been looking at the documentation and the waterfall, but am not yet clear on what it all means. I can’t see a description for “Visually Complete” in the Quick Start Guide documentation, I guess it means the whole page (including below the fold) is available to be looked at, check?

But I’m more interested in a real user’s experience. The user wants to start reading the page above the fold, the rest is irrelevant to start with. He can start reading without clickable Google +1, Twitter and Facebook buttons, and also without waiting for the Google Search box to be available for use. Is this time to start reading above the fold measured? If so, what’s it called?

I’m looking at report: http://www.webpagetest.org/result/130725_0Z_1EE4/1/details/ and it does NOT seem to be the purple line (DOM Content Loaded) on the Waterfall. My heading underline #27 http://www.lifestrategies.net/resources/life-strategies-underline.png on my www.lifestrategies.net home page is used above the fold and that is shown as completing after the thick purple line. It seems that a line on the waterfall showing the time when the user can start reading above the fold would be very valuable, is this possible?

Or is my very limited knowledge of technical matters showing through and I’m missing something. If so, what?

Thanks a million for all and any help…
warm regards,
Cris

2

You should enable video capture in advanced settings and there will be a filmstrip link in the test results that lets you align the waterfall and visual experience: http://www.webpagetest.org/video/compare.php?tests=130725_QW_2SEA-r:2-c:0

If you instrument the page you can also get explicit timings for things that you care about (and get the same timings from the real users): Performance Matters: Measuring performance of the user experience

3

Thanks a million, VERY helpful (once I found the advanced settings on the home page/Analytical Review under the url field which seems to need the Video setting to be checked every time…)