The Complete Guide UX Audit Checklist and Benefits

UX is a vital part of your entire business. A staggering 79% of users who don’t find what they’re looking for on one website will continue to look elsewhere. Therefore, it’s important to perform UX audits regularly to ensure your website is delivering the positive experience you intended.

A good first step is to go through a UX audit checklist at least twice a year. However, the benefits of going through a UX audit regularly are immense, whether you have one website or many sites across different niches.

In this step-by-step guide, we’ll take you through how to perform a UX audit and walk you through all the benefits of doing so.

What is a UX audit?

A UX audit is an evaluation process where you review the common experiences of your customers on your website. It’s one of the most effective ways to uncover any flaws in user experience.

UX audits are typically conducted with surveys, heatmaps, customer interviews, and observational testing. The results are then analyzed for areas of improvement.

UX auditing tools that can help with this step include:

• Surveys
• Customer interviews
• Heatmaps
• User testing

The objective of a UX Audit

The objective of a UX audit is to uncover areas for improvement in user experience so you can improve your website’s conversion rates. By reviewing common experiences and pain points, you gain insight into what you need to tweak and fix in order to deliver a more positive and useful website experience.

There are 4 main stages within the UX audit process:

• Conducting the audit
• Reviewing the findings
• Creating a plan of action to tackle issues
• Implement changes for success

Performing a UX audit checklist will help you get through each stage smoothly. It’s important to follow up by creating an action plan after reviewing your findings so that you can easily implement relevant changes.

UX audit checklist

The UX audit checklist is an essential part of the overall UX audit process. It helps you to make sure you’ve covered every area of your website by following a list of questions or tasks for each section.

You can use our (free!) comprehensive UX Audit Checklist below as-is, or adapt it to suit your needs:

1) Navigation

Every website needs a clear navigation system that guides your users to the desired information. There are plenty of websites out there that irritate their visitors with unclear or difficult-to-navigate layouts, so it’s important to make sure yours is easy to find and use.

• Is your site mobile responsive?
• Is your navigation system consistent across web pages and devices?
• Do all of your links open in a new tab/window?
• Do you have a search function on every page?
• Is the language used in your navigation easy to understand for your demographic?
• Is it clear what each link will show before clicking on it?
• If your navigation links are not working properly, is there a fix?

2) Homepage

The homepage sets the tone for your website, so it’s important that you get it to spot on. The most important elements to consider will be your content, calls-to-action and any CTAs placed above the fold.

• Does your homepage live up to, or go against your website vision statement?
• Is the calls-to-action gated content?
• Do you have a homepage slider? Are any of the images broken?
• Is your content accessible and easy to read for all levels of visitors?
• Do you have a clear ‘About’ section on your homepage with a photo?
• Does your about section accurately portray what you do and who you are?
• Do you have enough CTAs on your homepage to take the visitor where they need to go? Are any of the clickable images instead of text links?

3) Product/service pages

As well as the first impression is given by your website, the detail you provide about your products/services will play a big role in how likely someone is to make a purchase.

• Is the purpose of every product/service page clear?
• Are your CTAs eye-catching and helpful?
• Do your pages offer good value for money?
• Are all of the images on your product/service pages clickable?
• Do your product/service pages answer any FAQs or common questions?
• Is there enough text on your product/service pages to provide an accurate description without needing too many images?
• Are all of the benefits you offer prominently displayed at the top of each page?

4)Usability

You can’t expect to keep visitors on your site if it’s not user-friendly. Usability is about the experience you deliver through your website, whether that be poor loading speeds or difficult CTAs. It’s all about making your content available and easy for users to digest.

• Is your website mobile responsive?
• Does your website load quickly on all devices?
• Are your images optimized, high quality and free from errors?
• Is there too much text or is it difficult to read?

5)Branding and messaging.

Your brand webotic solutions, or messaging, is all about how you represent yourself to your audience. While this may not be an essential part of the design and build of your site, it’s still very important to keep at the forefront of your work. Branded messaging will always help you to stand out from the competition and provide a memorable experience for your visitors.

• Do your images and text work together to create a cohesive visual message?
• Does your website represent your company goals and values?
• Is the tone of your language consistent across all of your content?
• Is there any conflicting or confusing messaging on your site?

6)Security

Site security is something that you might not consider at first, but it’s vital to the success of your business. If your site isn’t secure, it will be flagged by Google and other search engines so fewer people are likely to click on it. Site security is also an essential part of establishing trust with visitors who may be wary about giving you their information.

• Do you have a privacy policy on your site?
• Do you have an ‘About’ page with contact details?
• Is there a link to your main social media profiles on every page of your website?
• Does your site offer an SSL certificate? If not, why?

7)User Journey Maps

Over the span of their visit to your website, where do you want your visitors to end up? Do you have a clear goal for each page and how it links back to what you’re hoping to achieve? User journey maps are simple diagrams that let you plan the process of a user taking an action on your site. They will help with the design and build process, as well as the overall management of your website.

• Are there distractions on any of your pages that will take the user off track?
• Is every page clear and easy to navigate?
• Where possible, is each page linked back to your most popular or important articles/pages?

8)Design

Your website’s design is its most important feature. A good user experience isn’t possible without a site that looks professional, well-structured and effective in grabbing the right kind of attention.

• Does your design appear consistent across all devices?
• Do your images reflect the tone of language used throughout your copy?
• Do you use an appropriate font throughout your site, and is it easy to read?
• Have you considered capitalizing on trends like flat design (minimalistic website design)?

Conclusion:

Whether you’re creating a website for your business or designing an online portfolio, UX is vital to your success. By ensuring the design of your site meets the above criteria, you’ll be well on your way to receiving more traffic and building trust with new visitors.