The analytics people didn’t even know where these users were coming from. Of course, your javascript-based analytics package doesn’t see the users you are bouncing because of javascript failures.
form submissions and redirects took a while to explain to my colleagues
what
back to primary school for them i hope
Not the first time I’m reading this text, and I still don’t get a lot of it. Their previous form was ASP-based, which is also server-rendered, so which developer practice exactly doubled the number of users? Doubled compared to what? Did the marketing department also get a boost at the same time, and the updated website got better advertising somewhere? How did 96% satisfaction get calculated earlier, if there were so many users whose needs were not met? Where does the “20MB of javascript before we even render a form” number come from? What does “global javascript states” mean, regarding their previous React app, and why is it bad, because MobX singletons used to be an actually pleasant, maintainable pattern in my practice? Was the previous replacement attempt vibe-coded, and who made the decision to have developers do it like that? Given the choice of Astro as the platform, and the suggestion of Remix, what makes the developer so sure “it will still work 30 years from now”, because these are much more complex targets than just React?
there’s also tons of reasons changing a form can lead to higher completion rates. 200% isn’t uncommon, most forms are hot garbage, and not because of their underlying software architecture
Doubled compared to what?
This perhaps answers your question (although the length of the measurement intervals (before/after) is not specified):
When we launched, the number of people completing the form doubled.
How did 96% satisfaction get calculated earlier, if there were so many users whose needs were not met?
The 96% (or whatever the exact threshold is) seems to be a requirement imposed by law, so that it’s probably measured through some external procedure:
Adding a lot of pressure, this was a regulated monopoly, and if their customer satisfaction dropped below 96% (if I remember correctly) it could result in millions of pounds in fines.
It’s not that difficult to understand, imho. If a site works properly more people will use it, and with more users the same percentage of people filling in the survey leads to a higher number overall. Just make functional sites and the users will come to it.
Nice! I find that governments mist not force their citizens to buy new devices, not require them to have a big tech account in order to use their services.
