🎨 Major UX Overhaul - December 20, 2025
What Changed
This update transforms the Lighthouse Actor from "technical tool" to "anyone can use it" with zero documentation needed .
Before (Technical Jargon)
Title : "Lighthouse Audit Configuration"
Field : "Device Type"
Description : "Configure how the audit simulates real-world conditions"
After (Plain English)
Title : "🔦 Lighthouse Performance Auditor"
Field : "📱 Test Device"
Description : "Mobile = 375px screen + slower network. Desktop = 1350px + faster network."
Option : "📱 Mobile (Recommended - 80% of users)"
Every description is now in plain English
Before: "Throttles network speed to 4G (1.6 Mbps) and CPU"
After: "Tests realistic conditions (4G speed, slower CPU). Turn OFF only for internal testing."
Added context and recommendations
"📱 Mobile (Recommended - 80% of users)" vs just "Mobile"
"Interactive report you can download and share" vs "Saves the complete interactive Lighthouse HTML report"
Better section organization
📊 What to Test
🎯 Test Settings
📦 What You Get
⚙️ Advanced
Emojis for visual scanning
Every field has an icon (⚡ ♿ ✨ 🔍 📱 💻 📸 💡 🔧)
Makes it easy to scan and find what you need
📊 OUTPUT: Before vs After
Before (Developer-focused)
{
"url" : "https://example.com" ,
"device" : "mobile" ,
"scores" : {
"performance" : 100 ,
"accessibility" : 93
} ,
"metrics" : {
"firstContentfulPaint" : {
"value" : "0.8 s" ,
"numericValue" : 775.0985
}
} ,
"failedAudits" : [ ... ] ,
"opportunities" : [ ... ]
}
After (User-friendly)
{
"websiteUrl" : "https://example.com" ,
"testDevice" : "📱 Mobile" ,
"testDate" : "2025-12-20T13:26:50.317Z" ,
"testDateReadable" : "12/20/2025, 1:26:50 PM" ,
"overallScores" : {
"performance" : 100 ,
"performanceRating" : "✅ Good" ,
"accessibility" : 93 ,
"accessibilityRating" : "✅ Good"
} ,
"speedMetrics" : {
"firstContentfulPaint" : {
"value" : "0.8 s" ,
"numericValue" : 775.0985 ,
"score" : 100 ,
"explanation" : "When users first see something on screen (should be under 1.8s)"
}
} ,
"issuesSummary" : {
"totalIssues" : 4 ,
"criticalIssues" : 0 ,
"mediumIssues" : 4 ,
"message" : "Found 4 issues that need attention"
} ,
"topIssues" : [
{
"severity" : "🟡 Medium" ,
"issue" : "Charset declaration is missing" ,
"why" : "A character encoding declaration is required..." ,
"howToFix" : "Add <meta charset='utf-8'> in first 1024 bytes" ,
"impact" : "Current score: 0/100"
}
] ,
"optimizationSuggestions" : {
"totalPotentialSavings" : 13 ,
"totalPotentialSavingsReadable" : "0.0s" ,
"topSuggestions" : [
{
"suggestion" : "Initial server response time was short" ,
"whatItDoes" : "Keep the server response time for the main document short..." ,
"timeSaved" : "0.01s" ,
"priority" : "🟢 Low"
}
]
}
}
Key Output Improvements
Self-explanatory field names
url → websiteUrl
device → testDevice (with emoji: 📱/💻)
timestamp → testDate + testDateReadable
failedAudits → issuesSummary + topIssues
opportunities → optimizationSuggestions
Added human-readable explanations
Every metric includes what it means and target value
Example: "When users first see something (should be <1.8s)"
Visual indicators everywhere
Score ratings: ✅ Good / ⚠️ Needs Improvement / ❌ Poor
Issue severity: 🔴 Critical / 🟡 Medium
Priority: 🔴 High Priority / 🟡 Medium / 🟢 Low
Summary statistics
Total issues breakdown (critical vs medium)
Total potential time savings: "2.3s"
Friendly messages: "🎉 No issues found!"
Actionable information
Each issue has "howToFix" field
Each suggestion has "timeSaved" and "priority"
Clear impact statements
Organized into sections with emojis
🌐 Basic Info
✅ Status
📊 Overall Scores
⚡ Speed Metrics
❌ Issues Found
💡 Ways to Speed Up Your Site
🔧 Technical Details
📸 Visual Progress
💡 Why These Changes Matter
For Non-Technical Users
No documentation needed - Everything is explained inline
Know what to do - Clear recommendations and priorities
Understand results - Plain English, not technical jargon
Make decisions - Context for every option (why/when/trade-offs)
For Developers
Still get all the data - Technical details are in technicalDetails section
Structured better - Easier to parse programmatically
More context - Explanations help explain results to stakeholders
Raw data available - Can still get full JSON/HTML reports
For Apify Store
Self-service - Users don't need support to understand options
Better reviews - Users can actually use it without frustration
Clear value - Immediately see what you're getting
Professional - Polished UX shows attention to detail
🚀 What's Next
Rebuild in Apify Console to test the new UX:
Go to your Actor in Apify Console
Click "Build" (not Clean build)
Test with a sample URL
Check the dataset output - should be much clearer!
The Actor is now production-ready for Apify Store publication. No documentation needed - users can just start using it!