Webdesigner Depot published an article about making your website feel like magic in 2026. Their answer is speed, and I could not agree more.

The nice thing about the article is that it moves the conversation past load time. Loading fast is table stakes. What people actually notice is whether the site answers them: tap a button, get a result. That is Interaction to Next Paint, and it is mostly a story about how much JavaScript you shipped.

Their advice is solid and unsurprising: render on the server, ship JavaScript only where you truly need interactivity, optimize images, use variable fonts, move work off the main thread, serve from the edge. None of that is new. It is simply what a well-built website has always looked like.

I would add that speed is not a luxury feature. Cutting weight buys you accessibility, lower costs and a smaller footprint for free. It works on an old phone, on a bad connection, in a train tunnel.

And it makes you money. Visitors who do not have to wait are visitors who do not leave, so every second you shave off shows up in your conversion rate. Ticket seller redBus tuned exactly the metric this article is about, cut their INP by 72% and gained 7% in sales. A fast website is the cheapest marketing you will ever buy.

So yes: make your website faster. It really is the closest thing to magic we have.

()  Joost van der Schee