Introduction

Startup Performance

The startup process of a mini-program is crucial for user experience. A lengthy startup time may lead to user churn, impacting overall user satisfaction.

In this chapter, "startup" specifically refers to cold startup of the mini-program and does not include hot startup from the background to the foreground. For definitions of cold/hot startup, please refer to the Mini-Program Runtime Mechanism.

1. Definition of Mini-Program Startup

The mini-program startup process begins with the "user opening the mini-program" and ends with the "completion of rendering the home page."

"User opening the mini-program" may occur when a user clicks to access it, scans a QR code, jumps from one mini-program to another, or opens the mini-program from an app.

The "completion of rendering the home page" is marked by the triggering of the first Page.onReady event. Due to differences in startup processes, the "completion of rendering the home page" in a mini-program is not equivalent to the DOMContentLoaded or load events in a browser.

2. Open Rate/Reach Rate

The ratio of the number of times the home page is rendered to the number of times the mini-program is started is also known as the (PV) open rate or (PV) reach rate. The corresponding churn rate is equal to 1 minus the open rate.

The open rate is influenced by factors such as:

• Startup Performance: The longer the startup time and the longer the white screen duration, the more likely users are to exit the mini-program due to impatience, resulting in a lower open rate.
• User Willingness to Wait: The stronger the user's willingness to wait, the longer they will wait. In situations where the startup time is consistent, a higher open rate can be achieved. User willingness to wait depends on the usage scenario, such as:
  • Scenarios with strong user intentions, such as scanning codes or searching, typically have higher user willingness to wait.
  • In advertising scenarios, user willingness to wait is lower, making startup performance optimization more necessary to achieve a higher open rate.

3. Startup Performance Optimization

In the mini-program startup process, the time taken for code package preparation and first screen rendering is directly related to the mini-program itself, and developers can optimize it to a certain extent. Other parts of the startup time are continuously optimized by the mini-program framework.

Developers can optimize startup performance in the following areas:

• Optimization of code package size
• Optimization of first screen rendering

Apart from the above aspects, there are other factors that can affect the startup time of a mini-program, which can be found in the "Other Optimization Suggestions" section.