A UX audit is worth requesting when you have a working interface yet feel it is not delivering what it should. Enquiries are few, or many people abandon their basket. The audit looks for the answers before anyone starts designing something new.
An audit does not need long preparation. It is enough to give us access to the site and, if you have it, to the analytics, and to tell us your main goal with the interface. For a smaller site it is done in a few days, while for a complex webshop or app the time depends on how many journeys we examine. It is also a good moment for one when you are about to start a bigger development and want to know what is worth spending on.
During the work we go through the main journeys of the interface the way a visitor would, from arrival to purchase or getting in touch. Where we have access, we also look at the analytics to see on which page and at which step people drop away. We compare what we observe with proven usability principles, and where needed we also look at how competitors solve the same problems.
What you get at the end
- Screenshots with every problem we found marked on them
- A short explanation of why a given solution causes trouble
- A suggested fix, often with a sketch
- An order of priority, so you know where to start
The biggest benefit of an audit is the order. There is rarely budget to fix everything at once, so we mark first what affects the most visitors and can be fixed with the least work. It often turns out that a few targeted changes bring more than a complete redesign.
We also talk the results through together, because behind a finding there is often a business reason that only comes out in conversation. In that case we adjust the recommendation to it, so the final list fits your situation.
Sometimes the audit makes it clear that the existing interface fundamentally cannot serve your goals. In that case the findings of the audit become the starting point of the redesign, and we work from them when mapping the user journeys as well. The work of the audit is not lost even if it ends in a complete redesign.
