[DataContract(Name = "p")]
public class Product
{
   [DataMember(Name = "n")]
   public string Name { get; set; }
 
   [DataMember(Name = "a")]
   public int Amount { get; set; }
}

By adding the name attribute we can specify how the XML element will be called, by default it uses the name of the class or property. The original response is 64 characters long, while the tweaked is only 35 characters, a reduction in size of more than 40%. This also works when the response is or contains a list or products.

// Original response
<Product>
   <Name>MacBook</Name>
   <Amount>123</Amount>
</Product>
 
// Response after tweaking
<p>
   <n>MacBook</n>
   <a>123</a>
<p>

In the end it’s a trade-off between overall readability and performance, if you’re consuming the service in .NET with WCF, then you won’t even know that the response has been tampered with, since it’s all done in the background. If you’re calling the WCF service from for instance Objective-C and are parsing the result, you’ll have to adjust the parsing to use the new XML element names.

In the case of an application for a mobile device, the benefits (faster loading) outweigh the disadvantages. You even get an added bonus: less bandwidth consumption on the server.