According to Ilya Grigorik, web performance engineer at Google, the new tool has been designed to help mitigate the confusing glut of information site owners are often faced with. “Through our ongoing engagement and collaboration with millions of web developers and site owners, we’ve developed many helpful metrics and tools across Google to help business owners, marketers, and developers alike identify opportunities to improve user experiences,” he wrote in a blog post. “However, abundance of metrics and tools creates its own set of prioritization, clarity, and consistency challenges for many.” Web Vitals, however, aims to “provide unified guidance for quality signals” that are “essential to delivering a great user experience.”

It’s not quite the “speed badging” concept Google first hinted at — an idea that would reward fast-loading sites with positive badging and display advisory badging on slower-loading counterparts. It is, however, a more constructive feature that actively aims to help developers see where there is room for improvement, and the accompanying Chrome extension is a useful tool to help them monitor progress, rather than shame them publicly. This carrot, rather than a stick, approach could be the gentle encouragement many website owners need to get their sites up to scratch.