Empower Mississippi · 2026
The mission was clear. The website buried it.
Empower Mississippi works to widen opportunity across the state: schools, work, and public safety. Their site took almost twenty-five seconds before a phone could use it, and asked every visitor to guess which department held the thing they came for. I rebuilt it around the people it serves.
- Time before the page is usable
- 24.9s4.0s
- What a phone downloads
- 6.07MB1.50MB
- Scripts running on arrival
- 713
- Google mobile score
- 5485
6× faster
75% lighter
68 fewer
+31 points
Nineteen other companies had to answer first.
Before a Mississippian on a phone could read a single word about schools, their browser had to reach nineteen other companies: analytics, retargeting pixels, two mailing-list platforms, a font service, a social-proof widget and a podcast player. Ninety-eight files, six megabytes, most of it nothing to do with the mission.
None of it was reckless. It arrived one plugin at a time over years, each one solving a real problem on the day it was installed. The cost only shows up on the other end, on a handset in a county with one bar of signal.
Twenty-five seconds, on a page about opportunity.
Google treats a mobile page as good when its main content lands within 2.5 seconds. The old homepage was still rearranging itself at twenty-four. For most of that time it looked finished: text on screen, nothing responding to a tap.
The rebuild is plain HTML and CSS, sent already-finished. There is no framework booting up, no third party to wait on, and nothing left for the phone to compute before it answers.
Waiting on a phone before the first words appear
The moment someone decides whether this site is worth their data
2.8×
Time before the page can actually be used
It looks loaded long before it will answer a tap
6.2×
How long the page keeps moving under your thumb
Content arriving late pushes what you were reading off the screen
3.6×
What a visitor downloads to read one page
Paid for on a phone plan, in a county with one bar of signal
−75%
Files a browser has to fetch before it settles
Each one a separate round trip to somewhere
2.7×
Work the phone has to do before it responds
Where an older or cheaper handset gives up
5.7×
Lighthouse, mobile
| Score | Old | New | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance, mobile | 54 | 85 | +31 |
| Accessibility | 90 | 100 | +10 |
| Best practices | 77 | 96 | +19 |
Homepage against homepage, Lighthouse 13 with mobile emulation and simulated throttling, same machine and connection on both, measured 2026‑08‑23. File counts and host names come from the browser’s own resource timeline on those same loads.
The menu named departments. Now it names what you came for.
A statewide organisation accumulates internal vocabulary, and it ends up in the navigation. Issues named the problem where a visitor was looking for the answer. Projects was a drawer holding a podcast, a programme called Embark, and the title of a single report. Justice meant public safety to the people who worked there and something else to everyone else.
Nothing was deleted for the sake of a smaller number. Every heading was renamed in the language the pages themselves already use, and the content types that were stacked in one list were separated out.
- Our Story
- About Empower
- Our Team
- Our Board
- Issues
- Education
- Work
- Justice
- The Latest
- Press Release
- Your Story
- Empower Commentary
- Projects
- Podcast
- Embark
- Labor Force Participation in Mississippi
- Join Us
- Join The Movement
- Become An Ambassador
- Donate
- Home
- About
- Who We Are
- What We Do
- Our Solutions
- Quality Education
- Meaningful Work
- Public Safety
- Research (EPIC)
- All Content
- Articles
- Community Stories
- Press Releases
- Research
- Podcast
- The Empower Podcast
- Capitol Chat
- Join Us
- Newsletter
- Ambassador Program
Four people, four errands, both menus
Looking forWhat Empower thinks should change about my child’s school
On the old site
Issues›Education
Under a heading that names the problem rather than the answer.
On the new one
Our Solutions›Quality Education
Named for the outcome, in the language the page itself uses.
Looking forThe research behind a position, before a committee meeting
On the old site
Projects›Labor Force Participation in Mississippi
Research had no home. One report sat in the menu beside a podcast; the rest were mixed into commentary.
On the new one
Our Solutions›Research (EPIC)
The research arm is a destination, and every report is also filed under All Content → Research.
Looking forThe organisation’s actual statement, not an opinion piece
On the old site
The Latest›Press Release
One list held press releases, personal stories and commentary together.
On the new one
All Content›Press Releases
Each kind of content is its own type, so a statement is never mistaken for an opinion.
Looking forA person from round here whose life this actually changed
On the old site
The Latest›Your Story
Filed by how it was published rather than by who it is for.
On the new one
All Content›Community Stories
Named as what it is: people in Mississippi, in their own words.
See the before and after.
The same homepage, on the same day, at the same width. The old one leads with the organisation and a photograph of the capitol; the new one leads with the reader and the life they are trying to build.
Everything on this page is measured against these two, homepage to homepage. The site itself is a click away.
Opens the new build in a new tab. Shown in build, with permission.
A site nobody waits for, and nobody has to decode.
If yours is slow on a phone, heavy with things you never chose, or organised the way your organisation is rather than the way people arrive, none of that is permanent. It is usually the same two problems, and they are both fixable.