Next.js App Router & Core Web Vitals Platform Architecture
Problem & Engineering Question
Modern businesses lose conversions and search visibility when traditional CMS platforms or monolithic React SPAs load heavy JavaScript (>500kB), causing slow Largest Contentful Paint (LCP > 3.5s) and layout shifts.
Technical & Strategic Approach
Engineered an App Router reference architecture utilizing React Server Components, zero-layout-shift font pipelines (next/font), and scoped CSS tokens without heavy component framework bloat.
What This Architecture Demonstrates
Sub-second mobile LCP, 0.00 Cumulative Layout Shift, zero hydration mismatches, and complete WCAG 2.1 AA keyboard accessibility on production edge hosting.
Key Decisions: Enforced a strict budget of <100kB first-load JS; replaced runtime CSS-in-JS with native CSS Modules; implemented accessible skip-link and focus management; configured hardware-accelerated transitions.