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On the Role of Font Formats in Building Efficient Web Applications

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Product-Focused Software Process Improvement (PROFES 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14483))

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Abstract

The success of a web application is closely linked to its performance, which positively impacts user satisfaction and contributes to energy-saving efforts. Among the various optimization techniques, one specific subject focuses on improving the utilization of web fonts. This study investigates the impact of different font formats on client-side resource consumption, such as CPU, memory, load time, and energy. In a controlled experiment, we evaluate performance metrics using the four font formats: OTF, TTF, WOFF, and WOFF2. The results of the study show that there are significant differences between all pair-wise format comparisons regarding all performance metrics. Overall, WOFF2 performs best, except in terms of memory allocation. Through the study and examination of literature, this research contributes (1) an overview of methodologies to enhance web performance through font utilization, (2) a specific exploration of the four prevalent font formats in an experimental setup, and (3) practical recommendations for scientific professionals and practitioners.

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Acknowledgment

This work has been supported by and done in the scope of the ITEA3-SmartDelta project, which has been funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG, Grant No. 890417).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Benedikt Dornauer, Wolfgang Vigl & Michael Felderer

  2. University of Cologne, 50923, Cologne, Germany

    Benedikt Dornauer & Michael Felderer

  3. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute for Software Technology, 51147, Cologne, Germany

    Michael Felderer

Authors
  1. Benedikt Dornauer
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  2. Wolfgang Vigl
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  3. Michael Felderer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Benedikt Dornauer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Science, Dornbirn, Austria

    Regine Kadgien

  2. Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Andreas Jedlitschka

  3. FHV Vorarlberg University of Applied Science, Dornbirn, Austria

    Andrea Janes

  4. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Valentina Lenarduzzi

  5. University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Xiaozhou Li

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Dornauer, B., Vigl, W., Felderer, M. (2024). On the Role of Font Formats in Building Efficient Web Applications. In: Kadgien, R., Jedlitschka, A., Janes, A., Lenarduzzi, V., Li, X. (eds) Product-Focused Software Process Improvement. PROFES 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14483. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49266-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49266-2_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-49265-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-49266-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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