The median device hitting a Philippine government or clinic system isn't a flagship, it's a mid-range Android on a congested mobile network. Designing for the demo laptop is designing for an audience that doesn't exist.
Performance is a budget, not a hope. I set hard limits before building: under 200KB of JavaScript on first load, Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds on a throttled connection, and no layout shift that moves a button while someone's thumb is over it.
Progressive enhancement does the heavy lifting. The system works with JavaScript disabled for core flows, forms submit, records save. Everything the framework adds is enhancement, not requirement. When a barangay office's decade-old machine opens the system, it works.
The techniques are unglamorous: server-rendered pages, system fonts or a single variable font, images sized for the actual display, and no animation that isn't doing communicative work. Boring, measurable, fast.
The test that matters: throttle to a slow 3G profile and use the system end to end. If it frustrates you in a simulation, it's failing someone in the field. The slowest device in the room sets the bar, everything above it is headroom.
