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Umemura Farm Website – Devlog #33: Performance vs. Perception: Rethinking Lighthouse Scores

Today’s Work: Performance Cleanup and Scroll Animation Refactor

Today was one of those days where development leads to more reflection than resolution.

I began with the goal of optimizing my portfolio site for performance, particularly focusing on Lighthouse scores. But what I discovered shifted my perspective.


Attempted JS Cleanup (With Minimal Gain)

I reviewed the codebase for any unused JavaScript that could be removed to lighten the page.

To my surprise, there weren’t any significant candidates.
I then tried to address Lighthouse suggestions one by one. Ironically, the more optimizations I applied, the heavier the page became, and the Lighthouse score barely changed.

Out of curiosity, I ran Lighthouse on one of the reference sites I’ve been using for inspiration, their score was only around 60.

This got me thinking, 'How much should I take it seriously?'


Shifting Focus: From Scores to Experience

From today forward, I’ve decided not to chase perfection in Lighthouse.

Instead, I’ll focus on actual user experience:

  • Fast initial loading
  • Smooth page transitions
  • Intuitive interactions

After all, a site that feels fast is better than one that only scores fast.


Refactoring Scroll Animation

I refactored the scroll-triggered animation logic into its own reusable file so that it can be imported across multiple components.

The goal was cleaner code and easier maintenance.


tags: nextjs, performance, frontend, javascript, portfolio

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