find-and-purchase-a-mac-cosmetics-produc on www.maccosmetics.com
Target https://www.maccosmetics.com
Mode usability · Device desktop
Persona gen-z-viral-lip-shade-hunter-13cc · Provider anthropic · Cost $0.0591
Outcome abandoned — The MAC Cosmetics website (https://www.maccosmetics.com and all tested variations) is completely inaccessible due to persistent "Access Denied" errors from Akamai edge security. After 10 navigation attempts using different URL patterns (www, non-www, subdomains like shop/staging/test, and path variations), every single request was blocked before reaching the actual site. This is a critical infrastructure/technical blocker that prevents access to the homepage entirely, making it impossible to proceed with product discovery, cart management, or checkout. As a rushed user, this would be extremely frustrating and would prompt me to abandon and try a different retailer immediately.
2 behavioral findings
unknown / unknown The participant attempted to navigate to https://www.maccosmetics.com and all domain variations (with/without www, subdomains like shop/staging/test, path variations) returned HTTP 403 Forbidden errors from Akamai edge security. Network requests for critical resources (fonts, icons) also failed with 403 and net::ERR_ABORTED. After 10 navigation attempts across 8 actions, the site remained completely inaccessible.
Category other · Failure mode other · Where homepage / site entry point
Journey stage unknown · Recoverability unknown · Priority none
Expected The MAC Cosmetics homepage should load successfully, displaying product categories, search functionality, and the ability to browse and filter lip shade products to complete the job (add to cart, reach checkout).
Objective signal
http-403: GET https://www.maccosmetics.com/ (repeated across step-1, step-2, step-3, step-5); console-error: Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403; request-failed: GET https://shop.maccosmetics.com/ — net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED; request-failed: GET https://www2.maccosmetics.com/ — net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED; request-failed: GET https://staging.maccosmetics.com/ — net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED; request-failed: GET https://test.maccosmetics.com/ — net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVEDTrust verified · Confidence 100%
Suggested fix This appears to be an infrastructure/WAF (Web Application Firewall) configuration issue. Either: (1) the test environment has not been whitelisted to access the production maccosmetics.com domain, (2) Akamai CDN is misconfigured to block all traffic from the test runner IP range, or (3) a staging/test domain variant needs to be provisioned and made accessible. Work with DevOps/infrastructure to either whitelist the test environment's IP range or configure a proper test/staging instance of the MAC Cosmetics site that does not sit behind a blocking edge security policy.
Evidence artifacts/screens/step-1.png, artifacts/screens/step-2.png, artifacts/screens/step-3.png, artifacts/screens/step-5.png
unknown / unknown The HTML page that loaded (despite the 403 resource errors) exhibits serious accessibility violations: no lang attribute on the HTML element, no main landmark, and page content not contained within proper landmarks.
Category accessibility · Failure mode other · Where page structure / HTML document root
Journey stage unknown · Recoverability unknown · Priority none
Expected The HTML document should have a lang attribute specified, a <main> landmark, and all page content should be organized within semantic landmarks (<header>, <main>, <footer>, <nav>, <aside>) to ensure proper navigation for assistive technologies.
Objective signal
axe-violation: [serious] html-has-lang: Ensure every HTML document has a lang attribute (1 element(s)); axe-violation: [moderate] landmark-one-main: Ensure the document has a main landmark (1 element(s)); axe-violation: [moderate] region: Ensure all page content is contained by landmarks (3 element(s))Trust verified · Confidence 100%
Suggested fix Add lang attribute to <html> element (e.g., <html lang="en">), wrap the primary content in a <main> element, and ensure all content is contained within semantic landmark regions. This should be done at the page template/layout level so it applies across the entire site.