Every project I have ever worked on has started with some form of evaluation. With the exception of brand-new businesses, every client I met had a bunch of marketing and business data available, maybe even some findings documented somewhere, but no meaningful insights or action plan to speak of.
And this is how I have used website evaluation and analysis in the past — to make sense of all the data and spot business opportunities and ways to improve the overall experience of the service.
After diving into a ton of articles, tutorials and online classes, I realized that a UX audit has similar steps, structure and even goals to a marketing and business evaluation — namely improving the overall experience and as a result, achieving a specific business goal.
This particular audit is a new challenge for me though. It is for an open-source app built for a nonprofit organization and not for a business or e-commerce website.
But let’s start from the beginning.
What is a UX audit?
UX audit or UX analysis is an inspection of a product with the purpose of improving the user experience and reaching a specific business goal.
A UX audit is used to:
find issues such as usability issues, inconsistencies, UI design system and design patterns misuse, bugs, etc.
prioritize them in order of importance for the user and impact on the business
recommend solutions to those issues and create an implementation plan
Why and when to conduct a UX audit?
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, conducting a quick audit is a great way to start working on an already existing project.
A UX audit is a great tool to use:
when a product or service is not performing as expected or desired
to eliminate errors and issues early on and before adding new features
to get to know the product better
when an extensive user testing session is not an option
The Plan
After extensive research, I came up with a 6-step plan for conducting a quick UX audit. This is not a “one size fits all” plan but a map for the needs of this particular project.
1. Determine the scope of the audit
The first step was to get really specific about the reasons behind this audit and then narrow down the focus so it could be done relatively quickly.
Here are some questions to think about at this point:
Is there an actual problem with the app?
What are the current user issues and grievances?
Is there a specific business goal that needs to be achieved?
2. Gather data
Ideally, there is plenty of data from previous research to go through. Here is what needed to be collected, created and studied before conducting the audit:
persona
empathy map
user journey map
user flow
information architecture
competitor analysis
customer interviews and observations
screenshots of all screens, features and interactions
3. Create a comprehensive checklist
Next, I prepared a checklist of everything that needed to be evaluated and assessed. There was no need to create it from scratch though. Here, I relied heavily on checklists by established designers, such as this one.
However, it was important to adapt the checklist to my needs so I went through the points and made sure they matched the goals of my audit.
4. Analyze the product, identify issues, and document findings in a report deck
There are plenty of report deck templates in the Figma community and I used several of them to create mine. Once I had the appropriate structure that supported the goals of the audit, it was time for going through each screen, feature and component, and through my checklist.
5. Prioritize issues and create an action plan
The next step was to address the issues one by one. To do this efficiently, each issue needed to be given priority and a set of recommendations on how to make the improvements in a timely manner.
6. Hand off the report and start working on the implementations
Once everything was documented and double-checked, it was time to hand it off, discuss it and start applying the changes.
What’s next?
Next time I’ll take you through each step of the audit and share my discoveries and recommendations with you. Stay tuned!
Resources to explore
Data vs. Findings vs. Insights: The Differences Explained by NN/g
UI UX Audit Process - How to Stop Skipping Them [Free UX Audit Checklist] by Headway
UX Audit Course: Conduct Heuristic Evaluation in UX Design by UXBoost Academy
FAVORITE QUOTES
“Every mistake [is] just a data point.”
“By asking people for their input early in the process, you help them feel invested in the outcome.”
“Lurking beneath every goal are dangerous assumptions. The longer those assumptions remain unexamined, the greater the risk.”
“great innovation is built on existing ideas, repurposed with vision.”
— Jake Knapp
GEMS OF THE WEEK
🎬 Video — My Productivity System (2023) ⚙️🧠 by Ali Abdaal. Since I stopped using Notion for everything, I’m testing different apps for building up my design, writing and productivity stack. As always, Ali was very helpful with any and all productivity questions I had. 😁
🖼 Website — If you are looking for a free image, this website will allow you to search several platforms, such as Unsplash and Pixabay and more, simultaneously: o-dan.net
📰 Article — Button Design — UI component series by Taras Bakusevych. This is the latest UI article I enjoyed. It is a wonderful summary of “аll you need to know about button design”. Enjoy!
CREATING IN PUBLIC
Besides working on the UX audit, this week I created a FigJam template for researching, creating content and learning new skills more efficiently.
It may look like a mess, but there is a method to the madness and I’ll share it with you soon! 😉