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What is particularly striking about this article is that Walmart was - in 2002 - publishing influential studies about the correlation between site speed and con

What is particularly striking about this article is that Walmart was - in 2002 - publishing influential studies about the correlation between site speed and conversion rate: http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2012/02/28/4-awesome-slides-showing-how-page-speed-correlates-to-business-metrics-at-walmart-com/ http://www.webperformancetoday.com/2012/02/28/4-awesome-slid... Get back to the basics guys!

duxup 8y ago
That or they found out it didn't matter if you are Walmart.
ashelmire 8y ago
I imagine the conversation went like this: Dev: faster page loads make us more money! PM: we NEED to use this custom font. This is non-negotiable.
- throwaway16512 8y ago
  I work for Walmart Labs. While your comment is funny, I just came here to say that this is not really how Walmart works. The technology division of Walmart known as Walmart Labs that is responsible for developing and maintaining the website along with all backend infrastructure performs A/B testing for every new feature (including custom font) that is introduced. Any change to production systems or applications goes through a rigorous review process which involves only engineers (not managers). No PM in Walmart can define a non-negotiable feature like this. Walmart Labs has a strong engineering culture and feature definition and testing is largely driven by engineers. Overriding a developer's recommendation the way you describe would be found to be in very poor taste. The report in this article was created prior to the current redesign of the Walmart website. Back then a lot of technical debt had accumulated. The website has been redesigned now and a lot of that technical debt has been eliminated. The website is much faster now. Please give it a try.
  - dmarlow 8y ago
    You had me with this: "Any change to production systems or applications goes through a rigorous review process which involves only engineers (not managers)." I'm going to spend some time looking around the site today.

duxup 8y ago

That or they found out it didn't matter if you are Walmart.

ashelmire 8y ago

I imagine the conversation went like this: Dev: faster page loads make us more money! PM: we NEED to use this custom font. This is non-negotiable.

throwaway16512 8y ago
I work for Walmart Labs. While your comment is funny, I just came here to say that this is not really how Walmart works. The technology division of Walmart known as Walmart Labs that is responsible for developing and maintaining the website along with all backend infrastructure performs A/B testing for every new feature (including custom font) that is introduced. Any change to production systems or applications goes through a rigorous review process which involves only engineers (not managers). No PM in Walmart can define a non-negotiable feature like this. Walmart Labs has a strong engineering culture and feature definition and testing is largely driven by engineers. Overriding a developer's recommendation the way you describe would be found to be in very poor taste. The report in this article was created prior to the current redesign of the Walmart website. Back then a lot of technical debt had accumulated. The website has been redesigned now and a lot of that technical debt has been eliminated. The website is much faster now. Please give it a try.
- dmarlow 8y ago
  You had me with this: "Any change to production systems or applications goes through a rigorous review process which involves only engineers (not managers)." I'm going to spend some time looking around the site today.