We’ve all been there. That moment when you just can’t get tech to work. It used to mean banging on the back of the TV (back when they weren’t flatscreens) until the signal returned. These days, it’s more like an app that won’t stop crashing or a button that just won’t work. Whatever it is, it’s true that a bad user experience can really ruin your day. You can’t help but think, “Did the creators not think to do a UX audit?”
An audit report is like a health check for your tech. From websites to software, audits check how something is performing so that you can improve the UX for all future users. This guide will cover absolutely everything you need to know about doing one.
What Is a UX Audit?
We already covered some of this in the intro. But if you’ve never done one before, you might still be wondering: what is a UX audit? Simply put, it’s a report that shows how easy a digital product is to use from the user’s perspective.
A thorough user experience audit covers a lot of aspects of your website, including:
- Design
- Accessibility
- Navigation
- Information Architecture
- Responsiveness
- Performance
- Onboarding
And in fact, a UX design audit can vary depending on what you’re reporting on. For example, an audit for an e-commerce website might focus on whether users can find what they need. It might delve into the check-out process to see how easy it is.
Tech companies can conduct UX audits internally, using the UX team. Others hire third parties to produce the report for them. Either way, getting an audit is not a step you should skip!
Why Is a UX Audit Important?
Essentially, when you audit UX design, you can see exactly what your users will experience–and feel–when using your site. That means you can get ahead of potential issues before they have a chance to damage your conversion rates.
Let’s further explain why is a UX audit important. It pays to focus on user experience. According to research from the Baymard Institute, 22% of customers abandon online carts because of UX issues like a complicated checkout process. However, you can benefit from a return on investment (ROI) if you understand how your website works.
When you focus on improving navigation, design, and content, you can create a smooth user journey. And your users will love you for it!
Here are some of the benefits that a UX audit can bring:
- Better user experience and improved reputation
- Improved conversion rates
- Increase in repeat users
- Better SEO thanks to improved loading speed
- Lower costs because you can fix problems before they cost you money
With a better brand reputation and higher conversion rates, you can achieve your business objectives much more quickly. So, not only does it pay for your users, but it pays for you, too.
How To Conduct a UX Audit
The UX audit process is fairly simple. You can do the whole thing, start to finish, in around seven steps. These detailed steps will help you understand how to do the research and draft the report. They’ll even cover what to do with it afterward.
This is how to conduct a UX audit.
1. Prepare Properly
Before you begin researching, you need to define the scope of your audit. No two audits look alike. You might cover different things or look to achieve specific goals.
So, look at:
- Which areas of your site/app you’ll evaluate
- Which problems you’re trying to solve
- The data and feedback you already have available (such as customer surveys, analytics data, and support tickets)
You might choose to audit the entire user journey. Or you might focus on one feature in particular.
Crucially, all the stakeholders should agree on the scope of the audit. After all, there are lots of people who serve to benefit from your product. Often, third-party auditors will start with a stakeholder interview to understand what everybody wants to know.
That way, you can align the audit with your business goals and ensure that everybody is on the same page.
Whatever you choose, make sure you’re clear on the scope. Have it written down somewhere so that everybody has a reference point, and set measurable goals to keep you focused.
2. Do Your User Research
User research is a crucial part of all UX. Audits are no exception. With the right research techniques, you can better understand your audience. You can use it to gather insights directly from your users, understanding their pain points and needs.
There are lots of ways to collect data from your users. Try these:
- Surveys: Send out online surveys to your users to gather quantitative data. User satisfaction surveys work particularly well, and you can also use them to collect demographic information.
- User interviews: In one-on-one interviews, you can gather more qualitative feedback. A skilled researcher can garner valuable insights about the user’s opinions and behaviors.
- Heatmaps: Try using click-tracking tools to generate heatmaps. Hotjar, for example, can tell you which elements your users engage with the most.
- Analytics: Tools like Google Analytics are great for seeing where your users spend the most time. They can also tell you about conversion rates and bounce rates.
Try combining a few different methods to get a holistic overview of your users.
3. Do a Heuristic Evaluation
If you’re a UXer, you need to know about Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics. A “heuristic” is a fancy way of saying “rule of thumb.” And in UX, there are 10 usability heuristics that can vastly improve UX, such as:
- Visibility of system status
- Match between a system and the real world
- User control and freedom
- Consistency and standards
- Error prevention
- Recognition rather than recall
- Flexibility and efficiency of use
- Anesthetic and minimalistic design
- User assistance with errors
- Help and documentation
Depending on the scope of your audit (hello again, Step 1), you might choose to focus on just a few.
Once you’ve chosen, you can recruit representative users and conduct testing. Crucially, these tests need to help you evaluate the heuristics shown above. Conduct the tests in an environment that closely simulates real-life usage. From there, you can figure out where there might be usability flaws in your product.
You can also collect feedback following the test through an interview or survey.
4. Evaluate the Visual Design
UX cannot function on its own. It needs its partner in crime, UI, to support it. So, while a UX researcher is conducting their audit, they should also focus on the user interface and elements like:
- Typography
- Color palette
- Icons
- Imagery
Why is this important? Well, the aesthetic usability effect dictates that users will perceive your website as more usual if it’s visually appealing. So, for this to work, you need to think about the following elements:
- Visual consistency: Branding is an important part of UI. But beyond that, a lot of haphazard elements are confusing and distressing for the user. So, make sure all your visual elements are consistent and match your branding.
- Hierarchy: Users take subconscious note of the hierarchy of different elements. So, the font size, contrast, and spacing can all play a role in how users perceive the site. Make sure important elements are the right size and appear in the right place.
- Aesthetics: Remember that one of the usability heuristics is minimalism. A clean interface with ample use of whitespace is more aesthetically appealing. But in addition to this, your site should evoke the desired emotional response in your users.
Assessing these is one thing. Viewing them holistically is another. Pairing your findings with the results of your usability testing will help you see how effective the interface really is. It doesn’t really matter what you think if your users hate the design!
5. Check the Information Architecture
The Information Architecture (IA) of your site refers to the structure of your content. It’s a crucial part of your design because users must be able to navigate the site logically.
IA and navigation include things like menus, breadcrumbs, active states, and search bars. Try to ensure that your layout is logical so that even new users can find their way. Consider these tips:
- Use Hick’s Law: The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number of options available. Make your menus as intuitive as possible, with as few options as possible.
- Eliminate clutter: We’re back to minimalism! Remove unnecessary elements from the interface to keep things clean.
- Check links: Any internal links on the screen should be working properly and lead to the right place. The user should know where their next click will take them.
6. Analyze the Data
Once you have everything together, you can start to collate and analyze the data. You might uncover usability issues from your analytics but also from qualitative user feedback. By collating everything together, you can look for hidden trends in user behavior. Try to check out metrics like bounce rates, cart abandons, and common paths through your site.
But once you have this information, you can go even further. You can look for why these trends are occurring. Hold meetings to gather various opinions, and consult your user interviews to see what your users think.
At this point, it’s also worth ranking your findings in terms of urgency. Which issues do you need to fix first?
7. Share Your Findings
Finally, it’s time to create your report. You won’t need to include every detail of the audit, but make sure you include the important bits.
- Introduction: Provide some context for the report and state the goals of the audit.
- Research: Summarize the data you gathered and how.
- Findings: State your findings.
- Issues: Share the list of ranked issues.
- Recommendations: Provide actionable recommendations to improve your site.
When the report is complete, make sure you share it with all the stakeholders, from product managers to developers.
UX Audit Checklist
Want to ace your audit? This UX audit checklist will help you cover everything you need to do.
- Prepare properly
- Decide on your goals
- Gather user data
- Create user personas
- Map out customer journeys
- Involve stakeholders
- Set an endpoint
- Evaluate your UX
- Explore your site/app from the user’s perspective
- Complete a heuristic analysis
- Conduct usability tests
- Perform user interviews
- Look for trends
- Analyze conversion data
- Examine your site/app data
- Analyze your data
- Identify issues
- Rank issues by urgency
- Share your findings
- Create a report
- Share with the team
How Long Does a UX Audit Take?
Typically, a UX audit takes two to four weeks, but they can go on indefinitely.
When planning your scope, you should consider setting a deadline. This not only keeps the researchers on task; it also reveals the key issues without audit costs becoming too high.
So, if you’re wondering, “How long does a UX audit take?” it’s really up to you.
How Much Does a UX Audit Cost?
The price varies depending on various factors, including whether you use an in-house team or a third party. Generally, companies opt to bring in other agencies or freelancers to do it on their behalf. But how much does a UX audit cost for each of these options?
- Individual freelancer: $1500-$3000
- Large firm: $6000-$20,000
The payoff is worth it, though!
Improve Your UX Knowledge With Page Flows
So that’s how to do a UX audit. But there’s more to UX than auditing!
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