UIUX circle 28 January, 2025

Conducting a UX Audit
(Evaluating designs for usability and efficiency)

PRESENTER: VANSHIKA SHARMA

What’s the Most Annoying Thing
You’ve Seen on a Website?
LET’S RANT FOR A MINUTE!

What is it?
Is it the unskippable pop-ups?
The pages that take forever to load?
Or maybe it’s the sneaky CAPTCHA that
makes you prove your humanity over and
over?
UX Audit
LET’S RANT FOR A MINUTE!

UX Audit
UX Audit

90% of users
leave a website To make sure users don’t become
part of the 90% who leave due to bad

due to bad UX
UX, it's crucial to understand how to
assess and improve the user
experience. This brings us to today’s
session: Conducting a UX Audit.
Let's get started!
A User Experience Audit (UX Audit) is a way to
pinpoint less-than-perfect areas of a digital
product, revealing which parts of a site or app
are causing headaches for users and stymieing
conversions. As with financial audits, a UX audit
uses empirical methods to expand an existing
situation, and offer recommendations or
improvements, in this case, user-centric
What is a
enhancements. Ultimately, a UX audit should let
you know how to boost conversions by making it UX Audit?
easier for users to achieve their goals on your
site or software. Amplify your thoughts. Start with
an outline of topics and identify highlights, which
can be applied to whatever subject you plan on
discussing.
 UX Audit

Why a UX Audit is Needed

Identifies Usability Enhances User Reduces Keeps You Supports Business
Issues Satisfaction Development Competitive Goals
A UX audit helps pinpoint A better user experience
Costs Regular UX audits ensure A UX audit ensures the
usability problems like leads to happier users Detecting issues early in your product stays design aligns with key
confusing navigation, who are more likely to the process allows for aligned with industry business objectives like
slow load times, and return and recommend cost-effective fixes, standards and user user acquisition,
unclear calls to action, the product, improving avoiding expensive expectations, helping retention, and brand
making the product customer loyalty. post-launch changes. maintain a competitive loyalty.
easier to use. edge.
 Heuristic User Journey
Usability Testing Analytics Review
Evaluation Mapping
Observing real users Experts assess the Visualizing the steps Analyzing data like
interacting with the product against users take to achieve page views, bounce
product to identify established usability their goals, identifying rates, and user flow to
usability problems and principles to uncover pain points and identify where users
areas for common design flaws. opportunities for encounter difficulties
improvement. improvement. or drop off.

Key Components
UX Audit
How to
7 Steps to UX audit success

1. Define the Project Scope and

conduct a
Objectives
2. Collect Metrics and Product Data
3. Run Heuristic Evaluation

UX audit:
4. Conduct Further Research
5. Identify Key Trends and Patterns
6. Build a UX Audit Report with
Findings and Recommendations
7. Share the Report with Stakeholders
and Implement Changes
1. Define the Definition
Without a specific and clear goal, your UX audit could

Project Scope go on forever. It’s easy to be distracted by an interesting

user comment or a new pain point to investigate. You'll
likely uncover issues that require further research during

and Objectives your audit, but put those aside for the time being and
stay focused on your objective.

Example
Let’s say you’re conducting a UX audit for Netflix.
Your objective might be to reduce the time it takes
for users to find a movie or show to watch.
The scope would focus on areas such as the search
bar, movie recommendations, and category
navigation, ensuring that your review is specific to
improving content discovery.

UX Audit
2. Collect Definition
Before diving into the UX audit, it’s essential to gather

Metrics and data from various sources like previous audits, user
feedback, and analytics. This helps identify patterns,
behaviors, and existing pain points. Key metrics like

Product Data session duration, click-through rates, and conversion

rates guide your focus during the audit.

Example
Imagine you’re auditing Amazon's checkout process.
You collect data such as the average number of
clicks required to complete a purchase, cart
abandonment rates, and user comments on the
checkout experience.
If analytics show that users often leave at the
"payment" step, you might focus your audit on
simplifying that process, reducing friction points, or
UX Audit adding faster payment options.
3. Run Heuristic Definition
Heuristic evaluation is a simple, low-cost way to identify

Evaluation usability issues. It involves reviewing the product against

established design principles (heuristics), such as
making sure the user knows the system status, ensuring
consistency, and providing error recovery options.
Typically, 3-5 evaluators look for issues across the user
interface.

Example
For Spotify, a heuristic evaluation might identify
problems like the inability to quickly return to a playlist
after listening to a song. Evaluators could note that the
interface doesn't clearly show the user's current playlist
or history, making navigation confusing. Based on
heuristics (Visibility of System Status), changes like
more intuitive navigation buttons and clearer status
UX Audit indicators would be suggested.
 10 key usability heuristics

UX Audit
4. Conduct Definition
While heuristic evaluations help spot obvious issues,

Further
deeper research methods like usability testing, surveys,
or user interviews provide more comprehensive insights.
These tests observe real user interactions and gather

Research
qualitative feedback to pinpoint pain points and
understand user behaviors better.

Example
For Nykaa (a beauty e-commerce site), usability testing
could reveal that users are abandoning their shopping cart
because they find it difficult to filter products based on skin
type.
Conducting interviews could uncover that many users
are overwhelmed by the amount of options and would
prefer a simplified, personalized shopping experience.
Insights like these could lead to the development of a

UX Audit "skin type-based" filter to improve the shopping

experience.
5. Identify Key Definition
Once you've gathered user data and conducted

Trends and evaluations, it's time to analyze and prioritize the most
common pain points. Look for recurring issues across
different users and identify patterns. These trends help

Patterns you focus on what truly impacts the overall user

experience, allowing you to prioritize fixes.

Example
For Airbnb, after conducting surveys and usability tests,
you notice a pattern where users frequently struggle
with the booking process, particularly with selecting the
right dates and understanding pricing details. If 80% of
users express confusion about how pricing is displayed,
prioritizing a clearer and more intuitive pricing section
would be key to improving the overall booking
experience.
UX Audit
6. Build a UX Audit Definition

Report with
After completing the audit, you must summarize your
findings and suggest improvements. The audit report
should include a description of user demographics, the

Findings and methods used, key findings, the evaluation of the

interface, and actionable recommendations. This report
helps stakeholders understand the issues and decide on

Recommendations the next steps.

Example
After auditing Uber, you could create a report outlining
findings like "Users find it hard to change pick-up
locations" or "The fare estimate is unclear." Your report
might recommend simplifying location changes, adding
a clearer fare breakdown, and improving the visibility of
ride options on the home screen. These actionable
insights provide clear directions for the next steps in
improving the app.
UX Audit
7. Share the Definition
A UX audit is only valuable if its findings lead to action.

Report with Once the audit report is complete, share it with key
stakeholders (product managers, designers, developers,
etc.) to discuss the results. Collaboratively decide on

Stakeholders the most important changes to implement and ensure

everyone is aligned on responsibilities and deadlines.

and Implement Example

For Pinterest, after conducting a UX audit, you might

Changes identify that users are struggling to find related pins. You
share your audit report with stakeholders, including
product managers and design teams, and suggest
adding a "related pins" carousel under each pin for
easier discovery. After receiving approval, the team
works on implementing this change, and after a few
weeks, they analyze the impact on user engagement
UX Audit and satisfaction.
 UX Audit

What makes a good user

experience?
Does it solve the Is the interface Is it easy to Does it work
Is it intuitive?
user’s issue? well designed? navigate? for everyone?
If it's not solving a Users shouldn't need a Make it easy on the eyes, Users should find what Accessibility isn't just
problem or making life manual to figure things and they'll stick around. they need without a nice; it's necessary. Make
easier, what's the point? out. The smoother the scavenger hunt. If they sure everyone can jump
Your product should be experience, the better. have to search high and on board, no matter their
the go-to for a specific low for info, your design needs.
need. needs improvement.
UX Audit

UX AUDIT
CHECKLIST:
A UX checklist is a structured guide or list of best
practices that designers and developers use to
ensure the user experience (UX) of a product
(like a website, mobile app, or software) is
intuitive, efficient, and enjoyable. It serves as a
reference point to evaluate the design process
and identify areas of improvement before and
after launching a product.
 UX Audit

Now It's Time to Test

Your Understanding!

We’ve covered a lot of essential concepts today. To help reinforce what you've learned,
it's time for a quick quiz.
Q1

Can you identify any UX audit issues in this interface that might
impact user experience or engagement?
Q1
Problem:
Cluttered Homepage.
The homepage has too many elements, banners, and CTAs, creating visual overload.

Solution:
Simplify the Homepage:
a. Prioritize Content: Highlight the most important products, categories, or promotions.
b. Clean Up Clutter: Remove unnecessary banners and excessive CTAs. Focus on a clear
path for users.
Q2

Scenario:
Imagine you have an online insurance
form with multiple sections: personal
details, coverage options, payment
information, etc.
After filling out several fields, users feel
frustrated because they can't gauge
how much of the form is complete.

Feedback from users:

"It felt like a lifetime to fill out this form!"
Q2

Problem:
No factor to judge progress.
Users don’t know how many steps are
left in a long form, leading to frustration.
Uncertainty makes the process feel
overwhelming.

Solution:
Add a Progress Bar or Step Naming.
 Q3

Can you identify any UX audit issues in

this interface that might impact user
experience or engagement?
 Q3
Problem:
Unresponsive Mobile Design

Solution:
Implement a Responsive Design
a. Scale Text and Images: Ensure that the font
size and images are proportionally resized
for smaller screens.
b. Adjust Layout: Make sure elements like
navigation, buttons, and menus adjust
properly to different screen sizes.
c. Touch-Friendly Buttons: Ensure that buttons
are large enough for easy tapping on
mobile devices.
Q4

If a website takes too much loading time, what design changes

should be implemented to improve performance?
Q4

Solution:
Diagnose the Issue:
Internet Speed: Test performance on different connections.
Backend Performance: Check server, database, and API response times.
Missing Pages (404): Look for broken links or missing resources.

Design Changes:
Optimize Assets: Compress images, minify CSS/JS, and use efficient formats.
Lazy Load: Load non-critical content (e.g., images) as needed.
Cache Resources: Use browser caching and CDNs for faster access.
Asynchronous Loading: Load JavaScript without blocking page rendering.
Q5

What are the UX audit issues

present in this design, and how
could they be addressed to
enhance user experience?
Q5

Accessibility Issues:
1. Low Text Contrast: Hard to read for users with visual impairments.
2. Small Fonts: Difficult to read for users with low vision.

Solutions:
1. Use a minimum font size of 16px with adequate spacing.
2. Add descriptive alt text for all images.
3. Implement clear focus states for all interactive elements.
4. Replace handwritten fonts with legible ones and provide textual alternatives
for diagrams.
UX Audit

Thank You
PRESENTER: VANSHIKA SHARMA