User and competitive research, data analyses, an all-new architecture & adding value to your product – these are the 12 steps involved in a game-changing combined UX audit and redesign
Is your UI competitive?
As AI advances and online business evolves, it’s becoming increasingly important to ensure your user experience (UX) is relevant, impactful & adding value to your product (i.e. protecting your investment by ensuring max ROI).
We recently unpacked the entire UX audit process, discussed why a UX review keeps you ahead in the game, and showed you some of the benefits of a UX audit, but what if the audit/review finds you need to make design updates?
Well, we do a lot of combo UX audits and updates, so we’ve put together a 12-step checklist or UX audit template, along with some real-world UX audit case studies (so you can see the impact) and how to know if your product needs a UX audit.
A UX audit is an empirical methodology for reviewing how users experience your product, involving actual user research, competitive analyses, and building recommendations for product improvements. It generally includes:
A UX audit team sets up a schedule for research, questionnaires, etc. and will have initial engagements with your product and team, just to get a feel for it and the scope of the project.
We proceed by exploring the product's business aspects in detail. The audit team collaborates with the product owner and clients to comprehend the system and its commercial goals. This involves mapping the system and user flows, setting the stage for further analysis.
Next, the team delves into the user experience, mapping user journeys and summarising the discovery process to ensure a shared understanding.
After laying the groundwork, the audit team crafts questionnaires, interviews stakeholders, and assesses user personas. Valuable insights are gathered regarding user behaviour, system utilisation, and feedback. This information is meticulously summarised and presented for in-depth discussions and exploration.
Want to ensure you get great, usable feedback? See our guide on how to do customer interviews and customer journey mapping to anticipate needs.
Understanding the data is crucial. We identify drop-off patterns, factors leading to churn, and areas needing improvement for better conversion rates. Additionally, a competitor analysis benchmarks your product against others in addressing user goals, providing insights for real-world performance evaluation.
The UX audit utilises previous findings to analyse user journeys, ensuring alignment between user behaviour, intended experience, and business success. It also reviews the design, navigation, and UI of your product to optimise goal achievement. The result is a concise evaluation of what's working, what's not, and areas for improvement.
All this information is then packaged and supplied to the owner of the product, down to the tiniest detail. And it all comes down to one thing: What can be done to improve the UX of your product?
That’s where the redesign element comes in…
To design an effective app, the design team must understand its purpose, commercial objectives, and target users. This involves comprehending the problems it solves, optimising design for desired outcomes, and creating user personas with individual journeys.
See the must-have retail app features for personalised user journeys.
Before starting the design process, it's vital to map out the app's overall structure and behaviour. This system architecture consists of three layers: the presentation layer (UI), the business layer (logic), and the data layer (database and utilities). By identifying sections, pages, screens, and user interactions, we can effectively guide users toward their objectives and rapidly test ideas for optimal design.
Low-fidelity wireframes are essential for rapid testing and gathering feedback. These simple, two-dimensional illustrations of the app layout allow for experimentation with element placement and navigation before moving on to detailed designs.
After testing and receiving stakeholder feedback on the initial wireframes, refine and iterate the designs until the final wireframes are established. These wireframes should provide a visual layout of the app, including screens, features, and components. They should also showcase navigation, flow, and interactions, demonstrating how users move through the app and how it responds to their actions.
The final app design showcases all content, navigation, layout, and visual elements on each screen. It provides a realistic representation of user interactions and engagements, with polished high-fidelity mockups featuring detailed design elements. These mockups offer stakeholders a complete view of the app's appearance and allow for further iteration and refinement before rollout.
After final UI design approval, the design team exports all UI assets and necessary code for implementation. They also document the assets, providing guidelines for their use. The design team then supports the development team in integrating the assets into the app's codebase, testing implementation, and making any required iterations.
Reducing drop-off, reducing churn, and boosting conversions. If you want to see some real-world case studies where a UX audit and redesign changed the game for actual companies, check out our software dev cases studies.
Some highlights include:
In today's fast-paced product landscape, conducting a UX audit on a quarterly or biannual basis is highly recommended. But how can you determine if you truly need UX audit services? There are two key factors to consider:
Still unsure? Explore these 6 sure-fire signs you need a UX audit. And discover how long UX audit should take, plus use this framework for your user engagement strategy. Also see why your project needs a scrum master. To move even faster, discover the benefits of low-code development.
