Interaction to Next Paint (INP) explained

Why Google switched to INP

Until March 2024 the responsiveness measure was First Input Delay, which only timed the wait before the very first interaction started to be handled. Many sites passed easily while still feeling sluggish. INP is stricter: it covers every click, tap and key press during the visit, and it times the full journey until the screen actually changes.

What happens in those 200 milliseconds

A slow result can come from any of the three. Lab tools such as the Chrome DevTools performance panel show which part is long.

• Input delay: the browser is busy with other work and cannot start handling your tap.
• Processing time: your site's own code runs in response, such as opening a menu or checking a form field.
• Presentation delay: the browser works out the new layout and paints it on screen.

Common reasons a small business site has poor INP

• Chat widgets, pop-up builders and several tracking tags all loading and running at once.
• Page builders that ship large scripts to every page, even when a page uses one feature.
• Mega-menus or filters that rebuild large parts of the page on every click.
• Very large pages with thousands of elements, such as a shop page listing every product.
• Cheaper phones: the same code that feels fine on a new laptop can be slow on a budget handset.

Practical ways to bring INP down

• Remove scripts you no longer use. Every leftover tag costs time on every visit.
• Delay non-essential third-party scripts until after the page has loaded, or until the visitor scrolls.
• Break long tasks into smaller pieces so the browser can respond in between.
• Show feedback first: change the button state straight away, then do the heavy work.
• Keep the page smaller: paginate long lists and avoid hidden duplicate menus for phone and computer.
• Test on a mid-range Android phone, not only your own device.

Why lab tools cannot show INP directly

INP needs a real person to interact with the page, so a standard lab test cannot produce it. Lab reports show Total Blocking Time instead, which is a useful hint: high blocking time usually goes with poor INP. The true INP figure comes from field data collected from real Chrome visitors.

Seeing INP in AI Marketing Master

Where Google has enough visits, the app shows INP field data from the Chrome UX Report for phone and computer, next to PageSpeed Insights lab data such as blocking time. The status label tells you if INP is good, needs improvement or poor, and Milo can explain the likely causes in plain words.