Testing Black Friday
It’s that time of year when many people decide what to buy for the holidays. For the AI Testing Agents at Checkie.AI, it’s time to test all the Black Friday webpages — they’re true test nerds! 😊
Most apps are performing well this year, earning ‘A’s, but Walmart and Costco have a little work to do. Hopefully, it doesn’t impact their sales or customers’ experiences!
Let’s take a look at some of the issues Walmart is facing, as flagged by the Checkie.AI bots. Walmart earned a ‘B+’ this year.
First we notice that Walmart has a couple pages that are a bit slower than the others.
The sign-in page looks simple, but it’s loading some large and slow resources. With a quick click on the link, we can see that the ‘walmartimages’ script is massive — I doubt the sign-in page needs all those library functions!
The privacy and security page has even stranger things slowing it down. The slowest resource is yet another giant chunk of JavaScript — for content that seems almost static. Oddly enough, the second slowest resource is a font! Perhaps the font could be hosted on a faster server — or maybe it’s not even necessary at all. CSS anyone?
Looking at some of the bugs, Walmart has quite a few accessibility issues that could make the site difficult to use for people with visual impairments. There are numerous violations of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), an international standard designed to ensure that individuals with disabilities can access and use websites — like buying holiday toys for kids.
The AI Test Agents also reported a possible security issue, but for obvious reasons, we won’t discuss that publicly here.
All those issues aside, it seems the AI-simulated user feedback genuinely appreciates the design of Walmart’s homepage during the holiday season.
Across the entire category of Black Friday retail apps, we can observe common trends in scores for qualitative aspects of quality. These retail sites excel in areas like usability and design but fall short when it comes to emotional appeal. Users also frequently notice competitive differences in features and content that are important to them.
Perhaps these sites could benefit from looking less like catalogs and adding a bit more fun and personality to their designs. They might also improve by focusing on matching the competition, feature for feature.
Here, we see the most and least common issues across Black Friday retail apps. Many of the sites struggle with WCAG (Accessibility) compliance and performance. However, almost none of the sites have issues with inaccurate information, content, code quality, or networking.
These are great companies with excellent software teams, but they could all show a bit more care for individuals with disabilities and those on slower network connections. Addressing these issues earlier might have even boosted their earnings this Black Friday week.
Happy shopping, knowing that most Black Friday sites passed the tests with flying colors!
If you’d like to get similar test results for your web app, sign up on Checkie.AI to receive free test results or schedule a live demo with yours truly.
— Jason Arbon
CEO/Founder @ Checkie.AI
