Introduction to Lighthouse
Lighthouse is an open-source, automated tool developed by Google. It is used for improving the quality and performance of websites. It provides insights and suggestions for improving website performance, accessibility and best practices. Lighthouse is integrated into Google Chrome's Developer Tools. It can be run from the browser to generate a report with actionable items for website improvement.
The purpose of Lighthouse is to help us improve the quality and performance of websites. It helps developers to improve the user experience and make their websites faster, more accessible, and easier to use. It also gives you suggestions on how to make your website better for your visitors. The goal of Lighthouse is to help create high-quality, optimized websites with an excellent user experience.
The benefits of using Lighthouse include:
- Recommendations for optimizing website speed and performance
- Suggestions for making websites more accessible for users with disabilities
- Recommendations for improving website user experience
- Integrated into Google Chrome's Developer Tools
- Can be run to check for improvements and watch the website's performance over time.
- A free, open-source tool
- Provides insights into many categories
Getting Started with Lighthouse
To use Lighthouse, you need to have the Google Chrome browser installed on your device. Once you have it, you can access the Lighthouse tool in a few ways, but I will explain ways that I have used in the past.
In Chrome DevTools
The first way to open Lighthouse is in Chrome DevTools. You can right-click anywhere on the page you want to check and click on the "Inspect" option. You will see tabs "Elements", "Console", ... and "Lighthouse".
From Web UI
Go to PageSpeed Insights. Enter the URL to the website you want to check and click on analyze button.
Running an Audit with Lighthouse
Once you have access to Lighthouse, you can run an audit by clicking the “Generate Report” button in the Lighthouse tab. The tool will then start the audit and provide you with a detailed report of your website. The report is broken down into several categories. Each category will provide you with a score and specific recommendations for improvement. The categories are performance, accessibility, best practices, SEO and PWA.
Interpreting the Lighthouse Report
The Lighthouse report provides a comprehensive analysis of your website, with specific recommendations for improvement. The report is broken down into several categories, and each category has a score ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 being the best score. The report will also provide you with detailed information on how to fix any issues that are identified, along with specific resources and tools that you can use to improve your website.
To get the most out of the Lighthouse report, it is important to focus on the categories that are most relevant to your website. For example, if your website is an e-commerce store, then performance, accessibility and SEO are likely to be more important than PWA. On the other hand, if your website is a mobile app, then PWA is likely to be more important.
Alternative Tools
While Lighthouse is a powerful tool, there are many other tools available. Some of the best alternatives to Lighthouse include GTmetrix and Pingdom tools.
My experience
At my IT job, I utilized a combination of Lighthouse, Pingdom tools and GTmetrix. It was easier to monitor and optimize the performance of our websites that way. I was able to get a comprehensive view of the website's speed, performance, and reliability by using these tools. I used that information to make informed decisions about how to improve the user experience.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Lighthouse is a simple and effective tool to help you improve your website. By running regular audits and implementing the suggestions from the report, you can ensure that your website is fast, accessible, and user-friendly for all your visitors.