Stopping Slow Websites One Nonprofit at a Time

DESC nonprofit website

Client: DESC

Scope of Work
Front-End web development
Performance optimization
Security hardening
Visual design
CMS Training

Team: David Owen Hastings, Scott Marlow

The Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) provides integrated services including housing, emergency shelter, crisis intervention and healthcare to thousands of homeless people.

Our goal: to redesign www.desc.org into a custom, mobile responsive, modern website that showcases the organization’s updated brand identity with bright, bold colors.

Performance Metrics

PerformanceWordPress SiteBenchmark
Google Mobile Speed:73
Google Desktop Speed94
Pingdom81faster than 87% of tested sites
WebPageTest Speed Index875median = ~4,493
top 10% = <1,388
YSlow84average score = 70
Web Page Size340 KbIn 2017, average page size = ~2.4 Mb
median page size = ~1.9 Mb
Web Server Requests30< 40 – 60 recommended