Android Page Load Time

Learn how to measure page load time for Android apps using App Performance.

Page load time for Android is measured as the time taken for the system to complete the animation when navigating to a new activity. This represents the duration required for the new page to finish its visual transition and become ready for user interaction. This helps identify performance bottlenecks and improve the overall user experience.

The feature is compatible with test automation frameworks such as Appium, Espresso, and XCUITest. The page load time metric is available on both App Live and App Automate.

View page load time

To view page load time on App Live:

1. In App Live, after starting a session, open the DEVTOOLS pane.
2. You can now go to the PERFORMANCE tab and run the app performance test.
3. End the session, then click View Full Report and scroll to the Page Load Time section. It displays the following details for a test session:
   • Average: The average time it takes for all pages to load during an app session.
   • Maximum: The longest time taken by a single page to load during an app session.
   • Page: The activity name or title of the screen that was loaded during the session.
   • Start Time: When the page started loading, counted from the beginning of the session. For example: If the session starts at 00:00 and the page begins loading at 00:30, the start time is 00:30 seconds.
   • Load Time: The time taken for the page to fully load, measured from the start of navigation to the moment the page is fully rendered.

To view page load time on App Automate:

1. In App Automate, select the desired build and session.
2. Click the App Profiling tab and scroll to the Page Load Time section.

Impact on user experience

Page load time directly affects how users perceive and interact with your app:

• Navigation fluidity: Directly affects how smooth and responsive app navigation feels. Delays over 300-500ms become noticeably sluggish to users.
• User engagement: Slow page loads (>1-2 seconds) significantly increase bounce rates and reduce user engagement, especially on mobile devices.
• Perceived performance: Even if the app is functionally fast, slow view transitions create a perception of poor app quality and unreliability.
• Task completion: Extended load times interrupt user workflows and can cause users to abandon their intended actions.

Recommendations

Follow these best practices to reduce page load time and improve your app’s performance:

• Optimize onCreate() and onResume(): Avoid heavy, blocking operations on the main thread in these lifecycle methods. Defer non-critical UI setup and move network requests, database queries, and large data processing to background threads or coroutines.
• Use progressive loading: To improve perceived performance, show a placeholder (or a skeleton screen) immediately while the actual content loads asynchronously in the background. The time taken will be short, and the user will feel that the app is responding quickly.
• Implement effective caching: Use memory and disk caches for frequently accessed data and images. This reduces network requests and improves load times when users revisit the same page.

Related topics

• View complete list of performance metrics for Android
• View complete list of performance metrics for iOS