Performance · Hexabinar Insight
Latency Budgets for Global UX
7–9 min read · Published by Hexabinar Engineering
Users don’t perceive “average latency”—they feel worst-case latency. For global products, variance across regions, networks, and devices can be wider than the mean. At Hexabinar, we set latency budgets per interaction and design our network, cache, and UI feedback to keep the p95 within target—everywhere.
Global thresholds that shape design
These thresholds are aligned with human perception and modern Web Vitals guidance. Budgets below are p95 targets.
| Interaction | Budget (p95) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tap / Click feedback | < 50 ms | Immediate visual state (pressed/hover) to confirm input. |
| Keypress echo / Typing | < 50 ms | Local echo; remote validation must not block echo. |
| UI micro-transition | 150–250 ms | Ease-out; respect reduced-motion preferences. |
| Primary action response (same region) | < 200 ms | Edge compute + warm cache; optimistic UI where safe. |
| Primary action response (cross-region) | 200–350 ms | Route to nearest healthy POP; minimize cross-ocean RTTs. |
| Contentful paint (interactive view) | < 1,000 ms | Edge cache + streaming HTML; defer non-critical scripts. |
| API read (cacheable) | < 150 ms | Stale-while-revalidate; coalesce duplicate requests. |
| API write (non-idempotent) | 200–400 ms | Queue + confirm receipt; finalize asynchronously. |
| File download start (TTFB) | < 200 ms | Signed URLs; regional buckets; HTTP/2 or HTTP/3. |
Network topology for global speed
We combine a multi-region control plane with edge POPs for request termination and caching. Traffic pins to the nearest healthy POP (Anycast + health checks). Control plane policies decide region placement using health, cost, and carbon intensity.