I get a lot of packages, so I sit staring at the Fedex tracking page a lot. They recently redesigned it (to become more “mobile first”, I guess — just a couple decades too late), and I’m just fascinated.
I mean, it’s just a minor thing, and it doesn’t matter HANG ON: We’re on the Internet, right? OK, SO THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORST THING EVER LITERALLY. *phew* I was almost reasonable there for a second.
But let’s go through what the page does:
- First we get a white web page.
- Then the page shows just the header and the footer.
- Then it expands to show “Tracking ID” and a spinner, and this moves the footer down.
- Then it replaces the entire page with the tracking results.
- Half a second later, it blanks to white and then redisplays exactly the same thing it already shows.
- Finally, two seconds later, it blanks very briefly, redisplays, and adds a button on the bottom saying “Ask Fedex”.
That’s just kinda amazing, I think. It doesn’t transfer a lot of data, at least:
Just 6.8MB, which is practically nothing these days.
Welcome to my Ted Talk.