Planning the Web Almanac 2019

This year we’re setting a new goal to create an annual report of the state of the web, called the Web Almanac. The purpose of the Almanac is to take a snapshot of how the web is built and how it has changed over the year. The end result will be a web app that takes the reader through the different building blocks of the modern web and presents our findings about how they are performing.

Current Status: As of June 3, we are wrapping up our first milestone of finalizing all chapters’ authors, reviewers, and metrics. The next milestone on our roadmap is to get the technical infrastructure ready for the Almanac content to drop and to get all of the metrics ready to query once the 2019_07_01 dataset becomes available. All of the Author roles have been filled, but we’re still actively looking for Reviewers, Analysts, Developers, Designers, and Translators.


We’re looking for contributors to fill the following roles:

  • Subject Matter Expert (Author)
    • Responsible for providing an interpretation of the HTTP Archive data for specific chapters aligned with their area of expertise. For example, in the JS chapter, explain what the implications are for the number of bytes and CPU execution time to be rising. 1-2 paragraphs per metric are expected plus an intro and summary conclusion. Think of it like one blog post in a series written by many authors.
    • During the planning phase, experts should ensure that their chapters contain the necessary metrics to accurately capture their state. Also help us identify if there are any metrics that we are currently unable to capture so we can work on getting them in place for next year’s edition.
    • Time commitment: 2 hours in April to coordinate on chapters’ metrics, 4 hours in August to write interpretations.
  • Peer Reviewer
    • Responsible for providing feedback on the technical correctness of experts’ written interpretations and ensuring a consistent voice is followed throughout the report.
    • Assist expert with brainstorming metrics during the planning phase.
    • Time commitment: 1 hour in April, 2 hours in August.
  • Data Analyst
    • Responsible for writing queries to extract each metric used in the report. Results will be passed to experts for analysis.
    • Time commitment: 4 hours in May.
  • Designer
    • Responsible for creating the responsive UX of the report including static landing pages and data visualization. We’re looking for a design that complements the primary website but is not necessarily a clone of it.
    • Time commitment: 20+ hours throughout July and August.
  • Developer
    • Responsible for the full stack including bringing the design to life and providing the infrastructure to serve content on App Engine.
    • Developers are expected to include a11y and SEO best practices and ensure the report is extensible for i18n and future annual editions.
    • Time commitment: 5-20 hours throughout May, June, August, and September (depending on how much work you want to take on).
  • Translator
    • Responsible for translating the finished Almanac content from English into international languages like Japanese, Spanish, Russian, French, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Italian, and Polish (prioritized in that order).
    • Time commitment: 3-5 hours in September and October.

If you’re interested in contributing, please join us in the #web-almanac channel on the HTTP Archive Slack. We’re also tracking project progress on GitHub so feel free to jump into any of the open issues.

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