UX Audit Checklist | A Guide to Conducting an Effective UX Audit

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Having a website today with a successful UX audit is no longer a luxury. It has become a necessity. Consumer behaviour is changing, and customers are shifting from window shopping to online shopping. As such, a website has become the face of every brand. It speaks for your brand, sells your services or products, provides social proof, and allows you to tell your story. A good website will help you increase your conversion rate. 

With all this said, what is the first thing a potential customer sees when they land on your website? Its elements and ease of use. The complexities of your websites may be one of the reasons for a low conversion rate. But how do you rectify these minute issues that hamper your conversion rates?

With the help of a UX audit, also known as a usability audit or design audit. Continue reading further to learn more about usability audits, usability problems, and UX audit costs.

What is a UX Audit?

Let’s pretend that with millions of daily purchases made through your website and app, you are profitable e-commerce. Lately, your sales are dropping. And customers aren’t engaging with as many product pages as they used to do. And even when they do, they aren’t always completing the checkout process. 

As a result, they do fill their carts but leave your website without making any purchases. Like any other business owner, you would be concerned and wondering what is preventing you from retaining and converting users. Now this concern brings you to question the existing user experience of your website or application. And now you are figuring out a way to bring a solution to this crucial problem. An efficient UX audit will help you solve this problem.

A user experience audit is an evaluation of the user experience of a digital product. It’s a technique for detecting parts of your digital product that aren’t up to par. It reveals which areas of a website or app are causing trouble for users and preventing conversions. A usability audit employs empirical methods to enhance a current condition through the use of heuristics.

A usability audit aims to collect data that reveal where exactly the users are having problems. So that recommendations for improvements can be made to solve these issues. This will enhance the product for both the users and the business in the long run. A UX audit shows you how to increase conversion rates by making it easier for users to accomplish their objectives.

Who Should Conduct a UX Audit?

  • Website owners want to find and solve issues with the UI design
  • Marketers who are looking to boost campaign conversion rates but are unsure if the product is playing its part.
  • Founders with access to the prototype want to find flaws before moving on to development. Conducting a UX audit is significantly less expensive than correcting a final product. 

When to do a UX audit?

When to do a UX audit

To learn more about your clients and expand your business, you must conduct a usability audit. The impact of your UX audit depends on two factors: time and need.

Validate a new product design

Companies typically conduct one at the start of a project to validate a new product design. This way changes can be made without causing significant time and budget loss. A UX audit can be useful when a company wishes to redesign an existing website or application.  

Rebuilding an existing product

You should do a thorough design audit while rebuilding an existing website or app. It will help you assess current user flows and discover difficulties, and bottlenecks that prevent consumers from completing their jobs. A thorough design audit will ensure that your product is consistent from beginning to end. When multiple teams are working on the same project, a design audit can be effective.

Introducing new feature

When introducing a new feature, a UX audit can help you assess whether the new feature is a worthy addition or not. You’ll also find out if your feature is doing well among users and if they have any navigational issues.

To conclude, a usability audit is just like your routine health check-up, but for your website. It helps in identifying the pain points and solving them. 

Why conduct a UX Audit? | How Does UX Audit Help Business?

Why conduct a UX Audit

A product is useless if no one buys it. Over the years, corporate software has been designed with sales and technical objectives in mind instead of user needs in mind. It’s much more difficult to imagine making new adjustments to it. 

Even if it worked beautifully at first, businesses might wind up having a product that no longer meets their objectives in the same way it did when it was initially launched. This can result in a variety of concerns, such as fewer sales, a struggle to retain consumers, or users missing crucial data. It’s often tough to figure out what’s causing these problems. And this is where a UX audit comes into the picture. 

6 reasons why you should do a usability audit:

1. Happy customers

Happy customers

The chances of retaining your clients increase when they leave your app or website satisfied. Chances are they will come back if you can achieve their tasks seamlessly without facing much trouble. This will create a win-win situation for both your customers and yourself.

2. Higher conversion rate

Higher conversion rate

User experience audits help businesses increase conversions. It will point out flaws in your goods. The move will make it easier for your users to complete tasks. Your products will become more enjoyable to use and will have the best usability possible. As a consequence, your customers will fall in love with your brand and become more likely to engage and convert.

3. Redesigning on solid data 

Redesigning on solid dataĀ 

The design team gathers all the accessible data at the start of the UX Audit. Then it gives you advice on how to get more useful data using various tactics. They take into consideration vital factors like business evaluation, user objectives, conversion metrics, customer care data, and sales data. Other vital factors are traffic, engagement, compliance with UX standards, usability heuristics, mental modelling, wire-framing, prototyping, and UX best practices.

The UX audit report is based on data. The changes and revamps you make will be based on facts rather than guesses.

4. Fresh product perspective 

Fresh product perspectiveĀ 

When you know everything about a product, you start to ignore some defects and logical errors in it. The same can be said for content: is your product’s USP and message apparent to people? Are you sure you’re not employing language from the business world? A fresh perspective helps you spot weaknesses easily. And an expert UX agency may also rightly push you with an efficient UX audit.

5. Better customer retention

Better customer retention.

The best way to retain your customers is to keep them happy. And the best way to do that is: to solve their issues. Once your product can satisfy your users, they will have become loyal customers. Because of its high customer happiness, they will choose your brand over rivals. They are also more inclined to spend more because they are repeat clients. You’ll be able to create repeat orders forever, keeping your business and income afloat. A UX audit report can assist you in identifying issue areas and potential remedies to make it simpler for your consumers to connect with your product.

6. Enhanced brand awareness

Enhanced brand awareness

A brand’s ultimate goal is to be known as a people-centric brand. Product navigation that is simple and successful in solving your users’ problems, and making them happy raises brand recognition. All of this is feasible when usability testing is done regularly. They will talk and share their pleasant experience with others. This will act as word of mouth and as an inexpensive marketing tool. 

How to conduct a UX Audit?

How to conduct a UX Audit

To execute a good usability audit, you’ll need a competent UX agency with UX audit specialists. The user experience audit adheres to the prescribed procedure to discover issue areas and potential solutions for them.

1. Analyzing user experience 

The first stage of a product UX audit is to analyze the user experience. The goal is to gain a deeper knowledge of your product in terms of challenges and corporate objectives. A usability audit expert will look into the logic of the user interaction to check whether it is flawed. Furthermore, the usability testing auditor will check for things like:

  • Usability problems and consistency
  • How does your app make your consumers feel when they’re using it?
  • The ease of use of your user interface

At this stage, various UX methods can be used to determine how well your product works.  Heat maps can also assist you in finding what is bothering your users.

2. In-depth analysis

A pleasant user experience relies on the content of your app or website. Your users may quit and seek out your rivals if your material is poor or unoptimized. Your UX audit team will determine whether your content is in line with the preferences of your target audience. 

A usability expert will also look to see if your content can help your product achieve its goals. They’ll also think about how simple it is to use your goods. They’ll also check for any additional red flags in your information architecture. They might investigate if consumers can seek assistance while executing a key task, for example.

At this stage, user feedback on your digital goods’ user experience may be obtained through user interviews and surveys. It might also include the use of tools like Google Analytics to determine how much traffic their digital items receive. Allowing them to quantify information on the number of people who visit a product over time and where they go. They also make sure that the data is old enough for trends to develop. Finally, it entails tracking technical issues such as the time it takes for your page to load.

3. UX audit report 

Lastly, once the problem areas have been identified, a UX Audit report is prepared. This usability testing report offers a detailed breakdown of all issues found as well as an explanation. It can assist you in understanding where your business stands. Apart from the problems, the UX audit report also offers strategic solutions. You, as the founder, may implement these with the help of your UX audit firm.

How much does a UX audit cost?

UX audits are a low-cost way to fix costly usability issues. In-house staff can’t bring in the element of absolute neutrality necessary to conduct a UX audit correctly. Therefore it should be done by a specialist design audit agency.

A usability test can cost anywhere from $5k to $15k. These estimates give you a rough idea but the actual cost may vary. Depending on the scope and size of the product, the experience of the firm or freelancer, geographical location, duration, etc.

Conclusion

No doubt, a good usability audit can be an intensive, time-consuming, and expensive procedure. However, it has the potential to greatly increase the performance of your product. A good audit will assist your startup to focus on what to emphasize in future design updates. The use of powerful insights and detailed recommendations might truly take your firm to the next level.

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