Software engineering · Operations & workflows · Product & design
Latency.
The time taken for an operation or request to produce its response.
Useful when “make it faster” needs a measurable target.
“Measure search latency from the user’s request to the displayed result, including slow requests.”
A closer look
Specify where measurement begins and ends. Server processing time may omit network delay or browser rendering. Averages can hide slow experiences, so a percentile such as the 95th can help describe the slower tail of the distribution.
Put it to work
“Compare median and 95th-percentile latency before and after the change.”
A useful distinction
Latency is time per operation. Throughput is how much work completes per unit of time; improving one does not always improve the other.