Providing a smooth experience during an interactive resize of a browser window is remarkably difficult. Each resize operation involves the browser process (which receives the event), the renderer process (which needs to update the page, relayout etc.), and the gpu process (which updates the content on screen). There are various trade-offs made in this process to make the user-experience better. Having some data to model the resize-behaviour of users can help us improve the various heuristics we make, and fine-tune them to improve the user experience. It also makes it easier to write tests to match the user behaviour and watch for regressions/improvements etc.
Duration of an interactive resize from start to end. Measured only on Windows.
Size changed between two consecutive steps during browser-window resize. Measured only on Windows.
Number of intermediate resize-steps taken to complete the resize from start to end. Measured only on Windows.
Time-interval between two consecutive steps during browser-window resize. An interactive resize can have many number of small steps. This measures the interval between two steps. ‘Duration’ measures the interval between the first and last steps. Note that a high interval is not necessarily bad (e.g. a user could pause in the middle of the resize). Measured only on Windows.