eValid™ -- The WebSite Quality Authority Browser-Based Client-Side WebSite Mapping & Analysis, Functional Testing and Validation, Server Loading, Page Timing/Tuning, and Quality Monitoring. © Copyright 2004 by eValid, Inc.

Summary
Page tuning uses eValid's detailed timing capability and dynamic playbacks to help identify slow-loading page components.

Procedure
After selecting the page to be tuned the procedure is simple.

• Open Recording. Do this in the conventional way, and repeat the download a nominal number of times, e.g. 10.
• Normalize Waits. To make sure there is enough time between page download so that the HTTP protocol will not persist (this would interfere with the accuracy of the measurements) make sure there is at least 3000 msec (3.0 sec) between commands.
• Adjust Playback and Cache Settings. Make sure you have chosen Detailed Timings ON and Never Use Cache.
• Play Back The Script. Run the script and observe the sequence of downloads.
• Study The Performance Chart. At the end of playback, select the Peformance Chart and study it carefully. You will see essentially the same stack of page components, mostly in identically the same order, for the page you are testing. Look for page elements that are consistently larger than all of the other pages, or those which take more than 10% of the total time. These are the page elements that are interferring with good performance.

Example
The eValid Performance Chart below shows the complete, detailed timings for playback of a typical page tuning playback script. Move your cursor over the stacks to see the details of each successive download of the same page.

Can you identify which elements on this page ought to be trimmed down to improve overall performance? They are probably the ones that take the longest, the ones with the biggest solid color.

# Recording by eValid Ver. 4 
# (c) Copyright 2004 by eValid, Inc. 
# Recording made on: Microsoft Windows 2000

ProjectID "CNN"
GroupID "CNN"
TestID "Tuning_Process_Example"
LogID "AUTO"

ScreenSize 1024 768
FontSize 0
InitLink "http://www.cnn.com/"
Wait 3886
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3901
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3751
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3431
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3461
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3450
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3401
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3441
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
Wait 3390
GotoLink "http://www.cnn.com/" ""
# End of the Script.