Modernizing higher-ed sites with native code and better performance

Developers can leverage browser features to meet user demands for interaction and speed that rival those of native applications.

As the Digital Collegium 2026 Dev Summit made clear, achieving these upgrades requires less code and over-engineering than you may think.

Dev Summit spotlight sessions

This presentation outlined why website performance is more than just a technical metric, it is a primary driver of the user experience that can directly influence enrollment. For prospective students, a site’s speed serves as their digital first impression.

Graboski shared how load times influence user behavior, referencing Jakob Nielsen’s “Three Time Limits” 

• 0.1 seconds: The gold standard for an instantaneous, seamless response
• 1 second: The point where users begin to notice a delay and find the experience less pleasant
• 10 seconds: The limit of human attention, most visitors will abandon the site entirely at this mark

To keep potential students engaged, institutions cannot afford to make them wait. A slow or negative user experience can directly affect a student’s decision.

By implementing multi-tiered caching strategies, starting with back-end data storage, full-page HTML caching and up to utilizing a browser’s local storage, developers can cut load times from seconds down to milliseconds. Streamlining database queries by removing redundant fields or heavy parameters also helps preserve these critical moments of engagement.

These techniques helped Monmouth University rise to the top of the SpeedyU higher education website performance leaderboard.

This talk discussed how the web platform has evolved. While older browsers required bulky JavaScript libraries to handle interactivity, modern browsers handle those functions natively. Building on these built-in capabilities, modern CSS and Vanilla JS, are a must for developers.

Three main advantages to this approach:

• Performance and accessibility by default: Using native CSS instead of complex JavaScript abstractions reduces code, resulting in lighter pages. Replacing custom widgets with semantic HTML (like <details> and <summary> tags) ensures accessibility with native elements.
• Security and maintenance: Reducing reliance on third-party plugins shrinks the attack surface for security vulnerabilities–especially in a world of increasing supply-chain attacks.
• Designing for a variable environment: Accommodating different devices and varying network speeds, modern capabilities enable built-in progressive enhancement.

By utilizing modern features like scroll-behavior or the :has() selector, developers can strip away unnecessary JavaScript.

This session demonstrated how much fun modern development can be. Using a Zombie theme across several examples, Rhea live demoed using CSS keyframes to create engaging animations triggered by a user’s scroll movements.

Three takeaway tips:

Named timelines keep things organized:

html, body {
scroll-timeline-name: –progress;
}
.progress {
animation: progress;
animation-timeline: –progress;
}

Timeline scoping helps isolate animations:

.scrollcontainer {
scroll-timeline-name: –chompy;
}
.chomp {
animation-timeline: auto, –chompy;
}
body {
timeline-scope: –chompy;
}

The scroll axis can be adjusted for horizontal scrolling:

.scrollcontainer {
scroll-timeline-name: –infect;
scroll-timeline-axis: x;
}