Our homepage globe has a job: bring a little movement and character to the opening of the site. Removing it would make the page simpler, but it would also remove something we wanted to keep.
The engineering question was more interesting: could we keep the experience and reduce the work happening around it?
We questioned the implementation first
An animated scene can compete with scrolling, controls and other browser work. We moved the globe’s rendering into an OffscreenCanvas worker where the browser supports it, while retaining a fallback renderer.
That changes how the work is scheduled. It does not make the artwork less important or turn the animation into a static picture for a performance test.
We also reduced the data carried by the scene to what it actually draws. The visible globe points stayed the same; unused data did not need to travel with them.
We made its lifecycle part of the design
An animation does not need to work equally hard when the page is hidden. We connected rendering to visibility and preserved pause, play and reduced-motion behaviour.
The main page and the worker also need to stay in step. Sending more drawing requests than can be handled simply creates another kind of queue. Controlling that handover is part of keeping the effect responsive.
We tested more than the number
The optimisation work included automated tests, responsive checks and browser inspection. We looked at the visual result as well as loading and main-thread behaviour.
A Lighthouse lab score is useful evidence about a particular run. It does not tell us how every visitor’s device or connection behaves, and it does not replace checks of the actual interaction.
The lesson was smaller than a redesign
We wanted the same distinctive opening, with less unnecessary work behind it. That meant changing data delivery and rendering behaviour rather than asking the design to become generic.
It is a useful approach for any existing site: identify the expensive part, preserve the purpose and test the result. Our animation design notes look at the visitor side of those choices.
