Google introduced a new metric for page experience called Interaction to Next Paint (INP). INP is an experimental field metric that measures responsiveness. Responsiveness is how fast a page responds to user inputs and is thus a critical metric for tracking user experience scores.
Google puts a lot of emphasis on improving user experience.
The Core Web Vitals update rolled out last year is proof that user experience is a key ranking factor for Google. There was a lot of chatter about if and when INP will replace FID (First Input Delay) to become a Core Web Vitals tracking metric. In May 2023, Google announced that INP will replace the FID as a core web vitals metric for measuring responsiveness, effective from March 2024.
Let us look at and understand this new metric that will replace FID and learn how we can improve our website’s performance score for INP.
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Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a field metric that measures the responsiveness of a webpage to user interactions.
Interaction to Next Paint represents the time between when a user interacts with your page (clicking, tapping, or typing) and when the browser presents the visual response to that interaction.
As of March 2024, GSC displays INP data in Core Web Vitals reports, having fully replaced FID metrics. It can also be seen under page score through Google's PageSpeed Insights tool.
Upon testing various URLs across different websites, the INP score can vary dramatically from the more traditional FID score. In cases where a website may be well-optimized towards FID and report a “good” score for this metric, the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric may be vastly different and unveil some additional implementations needed before scoring well there.
INP tracks three phases of every interaction:
1. Input Delay: Time from user action to event handler start.
2. Processing Time: Duration of event handler execution.
3. Presentation Delay: Time to paint the visual update.
Unlike FID, which only measured the first interaction's input delay, INP evaluates the complete interaction lifecycle for all user inputs during a page session.
INP measures these interaction types:
1. Mouse clicks on buttons, links, and clickable elements.
2. Touch taps on mobile devices.
3. Keyboard inputs in form fields and interactive elements.
Interaction to Next Paint does not measure:
1. Hovering or mouse movements.
2. Scrolling or zooming.
3. Page loading events.
A field metric is a measurable factor or characteristic used to assess a specific field's performance. A field metric requires user input to measure which is collected from real users.
Interaction to next paint is a field metric because it measures how quickly a user can interact with the next element on the page after the current element. This metric is important because it can help to gauge how smoothly the website is running and how quickly users can navigate through the pages.
As a Core Web Vital, INP directly influences Google's page experience ranking signal. Poor INP scores can:
1. Reduce search visibility for competitive keywords
2. Lower click-through rates from search results
3. Decrease overall site authority in Google's assessment
Optimizing for INP delivers measurable UX improvements:
1. Reduced bounce rates: Responsive interactions keep users engaged
2. Higher conversion rates: Smoother experiences drive action completion
3. Improved satisfaction: Fast responses meet user expectations
4. Better accessibility: Responsive interfaces benefit all users, especially those with motor impairments
1. It helps measure how fast a page responds to user inputs without any JavaScript or CSS code, as some other metrics do. It can be used for both mobile and desktop sites which makes it more universal than FID (First Input Delay).
2. It works across devices and browsers, which means that even if your website looks good on Chrome but not on Firefox, you can still measure its responsiveness using INP, as this metric does not depend on JavaScript or CSS code executed by browsers but just measures how fast your browser responds to user inputs without any external factors like network latency and rendering.
3. It can be used to measure the responsiveness of your homepage and any page on your website, especially pages that could have a lot of interactivity.
1. It is not supported by any third-party service right now. So if you want to use it, you will have to implement it yourself.
2. It depends on the Google Chrome browser, so if you want to get this data for your website, you will have to use Google Chrome as your primary browser (if you don’t already).
3. Even though it measures how fast a page responds to user inputs without any external factors like network latency and rendering, there still might be some internal factors that cause delays in the responsiveness of a page that INP does not measure. For example, suppose a webpage has JavaScript code that loads many resources from other domains (like ads or widgets). In that case, this could cause delays in that web page's responsiveness even though it responds quickly to user inputs without any external factors like network latency and rendering.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is measured in milliseconds, and it measures the time taken for a page to respond to the first input after a user action, like clicking a link or button.
According to Google, an INP below or equal to 200 milliseconds indicates good responsiveness. An INP above 200 milliseconds and below or at 500 milliseconds means that your page's responsiveness needs improvement. An INP above 500 milliseconds implies that your page has poor responsiveness.
Below are the steps to measure INP with GSC, PageSpeed Insights and Chrome DevTools.
Interaction to next paint metric is a crucial aspect of the GSC core web vitals report. A shorter interaction to next paint time results in a better user experience and improved search engine rankings. By optimizing your website for this metric, you can enhance your overall website performance and provide a seamless user experience, ultimately leading to increased engagement and conversion rates.
Optimize & measure INP Core Web Vitals in GSC using the steps below:
1. Log in to Google Search Console and select the website for which you want to measure the core web vitals.
2. Select the "Core Web Vitals" report from the left-hand menu.
3. The main dashboard displays your site's INP performance categorized as:
Good (≤ 200ms), Needs Improvement (201-500ms) and, Poor (> 500ms) as mentioned above.
4. Click Open Report next to the INP section to access detailed data including:
Specific URLs with performance issues
Mobile vs. desktop performance breakdown
Trend data showing performance changes over time
5. Once you have identified the pages with poor FID and "Next Paint" metrics, take appropriate measures to improve them, such as optimizing server response times, compressing images, reducing JavaScript and CSS file sizes, and other website speed optimization techniques.
6. Monitor the "Core Web Vitals" report regularly to track the progress of your website improvements and ensure that your website meets Google's performance standards.
Interaction with the Next Paint is crucial in improving your website's PageSpeed Insights score. Users who visit your website expect it to load quickly and seamlessly. Interaction to paint is now a core web vitals metric in page speed insights report.
Optimize INP by minimizing JavaScript and CSS files, preloading important resources, and optimizing images for faster loading times. Inspect INP with PSI using the steps below:
1. Go to the Page Speed Insights tool website
2. Enter the URL of the webpage you want to test in the field provided and click "Analyze"
3. Wait for the tool to analyze the page and generate a report
4. The report will show you your INP score. Click on it for details
5. You can now view the top issues that are lowering your page's Interaction to Next Paint
6. Scroll down to the "Diagnostics" section of the report for further insights
7. Use all this information to identify problems and make changes to improve performance.
For detailed debugging, use Chrome DevTools:
1. Open DevTools (F12)
2. Navigate to Performance tab
3. Record user interactions during testing
4. Analyze Interaction entries in the timeline
5. Identify bottlenecks in event handler execution
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is the delay that is introduced by the input buffer, while First Input Delay is the delay that is introduced by the first stage of the pipeline. INP is more than about first impressions as it represents the amount of time it takes for an input to be registered and available to subsequent stages of the pipeline. Whereas First Input delay only measures the first interaction's input delay, not the time it takes to run event handlers or the delay in presenting the next frame.
Read our full blog on INP vs FID.
Google replaced First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP) in March 2024 because FID fundamentally failed to capture real user experiences. While FID only measured the delay before the first interaction could begin processing, it completely ignored what happened afterward—leaving a massive gap in performance assessment.
The core problem was scope. FID tracked just input delay for a single interaction, missing the processing time of event handlers and the visual feedback users actually see. This created misleading scenarios where pages scored "Good" on FID despite delivering terrible user experiences with slow subsequent interactions.
Google's official documentation explains that FID "only considers the first interaction on a page" and "doesn't account for the time it takes to run event handlers, nor the delay in presenting the next frame" - critical limitations that INP was designed to address.
INP solves these limitations by measuring the complete interaction lifecycle for all user inputs during a session. Instead of a single-point measurement, INP evaluates input delay, processing time, and presentation delay for every interaction, using percentile-based scoring to determine the final responsiveness assessment. This provides an accurate picture of how responsive pages truly feel to users.
Stay ahead in the ever-evolving web landscape by adopting INP as a crucial measure of your website's performance and responsiveness.
Since Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a new metric, webmasters and SEOs have to learn how to interpret this data. It will take a while for the industry to agree on an acceptable level of INP. Therefore, you must start measuring your website’s INP now and keep measuring it until the industry has some agreed-upon thresholds.
Keep in mind that Google doesn't expect you to reach zero or even near-zero values to get a good score. It is more important that the trend is positive and your website's performance is improving over time.
Here are some tips from Google to improve INP:
1. Identify all user interactions on your page (e.g., clicks, scrolls, form submissions, etc.) and measure the input delay for each one (see the section below for details).
2. Measure the input delay for each interaction on many different devices (desktop/laptop, mobile, tablet).
3. Measure over multiple days (preferably at least 5 days per week) using different devices and internet connections (e.g., home WiFi/cellular).
4. As soon as you obtain reliable data, work with your engineers/developers to improve input delay by optimizing event handlers or resolving network issues.
5. If you don't have access to engineers/developers who can help optimize your code or resolve network issues, try using AMP, which has been built from the ground up with performance in mind.
6. Measure again after making changes and iterate until your input delay is consistently fast.
1. Measurement and Analysis: Before optimizing, establish your baseline. Use PageSpeed Insights to check your INP scores for key pages, then implement real user monitoring to track performance continuously. Focus on pages with high traffic or conversion importance first. Remember that INP measures real user interactions, so prioritize optimization based on actual user behavior patterns, not just lab scores. Use Chrome DevTools' Performance panel to identify which event handlers are taking the longest.
2. Optimize JavaScript Execution: The biggest INP bottleneck is usually JavaScript blocking the main thread. Break up long-running tasks by splitting heavy operations into smaller chunks that allow the browser to process user interactions between tasks. This prevents your page from becoming unresponsive during complex operations.
Consider implementing task scheduling strategies where non-critical JavaScript operations yield control back to the browser periodically. This ensures user interactions can be processed even during intensive computations.
3. Streamline Event Handlers: Keep event handlers lightweight by moving heavy operations out of the immediate response path. Provide immediate visual feedback to users (like button state changes) while deferring complex processing. This creates the perception of instant responsiveness even when background operations take time.
Use event delegation instead of attaching multiple individual listeners, which reduces memory overhead and can improve interaction performance across large DOMs(Document Object Model).
4. Manage Third-Party Scripts: Third-party scripts are major INP performance killers. Load them strategically by using async or defer attributes, loading widgets only when users interact with them, and implementing timeouts to prevent scripts from blocking interactions indefinitely.
Start by simply moving non-critical third-party scripts to load after initial user interaction. Chat widgets, social media embeds, and analytics scripts are good candidates for delayed loading.
5. Optimize Critical Rendering Path: Minimize layout thrashing by using CSS transforms instead of changing layout properties, batching DOM operations together, and avoiding forced synchronous layouts in event handlers. When multiple DOM changes are needed, group them to trigger only one reflow instead of several.
Focus on keeping your event handlers from triggering expensive style recalculations or layout operations that block the main thread during user interactions.
If you use Google Analytics, here is a guide on measuring input delay in GA.
It is highly recommended to measure the Interaction to Next Paint (INP) metric for your website because it is crucial for user experience and SEO. You can use it to evaluate your website against competitors and see how much time you need to decrease before you can claim that your website is “responsiveness optimized.”
It will help improve your SEO since it is a necessary Core Web Vitals metric, but it is also just an excellent best-practice UX tactic that can improve other KPIs such as conversion rates.
Suppose you don’t have the resources or time to optimize your website right now. In that case, we suggest starting with the low-hanging fruits like lazy loading of images and videos, pre-caching content, and optimizing the critical rendering path (doing these steps will make a huge difference in responsiveness).
INP is one of the core web vitals metrics to track page experience for users. Therefore, your website must be optimized for all the Core Web Vitals metrics to improve SERP rankings. Read our Core Web Vitals Guide to improve and automate your page experience optimization efforts.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP) is a field metric that assesses the responsiveness of a page. A page is considered responsive if it responds quickly to user input.
As per Google, a score below or equal to 200 milliseconds indicates good responsiveness for Interaction to Next Paint (INP). INP is measured in milliseconds and measures the time a page takes to respond to the first input after a user action, like clicking a link or button.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) can be measured by measuring the time it takes for a user to progress from a current action (clicking, tapping, swiping, etc.) to the subsequent paint. This process typically involves recording the time between the user's action and the time it takes the screen to paint, then dividing the time by the duration of the interaction.
To fix INP issues, developers should use techniques such as reducing page size, optimizing images and scripts, and caching static resources. Additionally, developers should test their pages with various performance tools to ensure their pages are optimized and their INP is above acceptable levels.
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