Article · Short read

Building for emerging markets: the story behind 2G Tuesdays

Meta Engineering · Engineering at Meta Free Beginner

Facebook made its engineers spend an hour every Tuesday on a simulated 2G connection so they would feel what most of their users feel. The lesson is simple and worth stealing: you cannot design for a slow network you never experience. Read it, then make throttled testing a habit on your own team.

  • You build better when you regularly use your product on a bad connection
  • On 2G a single page can take a minute or more to load
  • Make slow network testing a routine, not a one off before launch
Open on engineering.fb.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I design for users in India who are on cheap Android phones and slow, patchy internet?

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