The benefits of a UX audit, 12 signs you might need one and 3 steps to follow right now to get the expert UX input you need
How well do you know your users?
Because AI and business pressures are shaking things up in most industries, meaning now’s a good time to invest in finding and unlocking hidden potential in your product(s). And by far the cheapest and fastest way to do that is to get an expert outside look at your user interface, user behaviour and needs with a UX audit.
Here’s what you need to know:
Simply put, a user experience (UX) audit is a digital review of your product’s design and user experience. It's a deep dive into your product’s user experience, including usability testing, specifically to find out which parts of your product are working or not for your users.
Just like a financial audit, a UX audit is a highly involved and technical process that uses empirical testing methods to find key ways to enhance your product.
Most businesses use UX audits to ensure the product is user-centric because that’s what boosts engagement, conversion and ultimately profits.
See a breakdown of the UX audit process, as well as a full-scope UX audit and redesign.
Opinions and guesswork can only get you so far. In reality, you need data to make accurate decisions. And the problem with a concept like user experience is that people naturally want to make it abstract and subjective – “Does this look pretty to you?”
With a UX audit, instead of opinions, you get actual data – insights on user behaviour, conversions and actions, interviews with actual users, competitive analysis and how it all relates to your business objectives. This allows you to make way more accurate decisions about your UX design.
As with anything in life, working too closely on an app or even your content and messaging breeds myopia because you simply know it too well (have seen it too many times before).
A UX audit introduces a fresh approach with techniques to your UX design, such as usability testing, user surveys, analytics tracking and heuristic evaluations to highlight areas of improvement.
Users are the lifeblood of any tech product. The better you know them, the more accurately you can iterate, introduce new features, scale and grow.
And because UX audits include in-depth analyses like a product cognitive walk-through, you get to actually experience the product from the user's perspective, which helps highlight new opportunities and hidden potential in your product. See how to use emotional UX design to connect and build loyalty.
The entire UX audit process creates a balance between aesthetics, usability and effectiveness. And a product that looks great and achieves user- and business goals, well, it’s frankly worth more money.
Remember how we said it's dangerous to be too close to a product for too long (point 2)? Bringing in an objective set of eyes not only highlights new opportunities but also gives your internal team new steps, benchmarks and codes of practice to incorporate into their day-to-day.
In a world where tech and business trends change almost daily, keeping up is vital. That’s why UX audits include competitive analyses and benchmarking. This helps you understand key success factors in your industry, so you can always stay ahead of the curve. Learn to use emotional UX design to connect and build loyalty.
UX is so important to the user that it can literally make or break a product. At the same time, it's also how you ensure the product keeps delivering on promises. So a UX audit not only protects your product from falling behind, it’s how you stay ahead too.
Compared to the costs of having to pivot, completely re-scope, rebuild or do a complete business overhaul – let alone retiring a product entirely! – a UX audit is much cheaper. Not to mention faster: you can have the first set of answers around fundamental system issues within just a few days.
First off, if you’re not turning a profit, breaking even or at least not moving towards your profitability goals; losing users, not getting conversions etc. (i.e. your product/business is in trouble), then you should immediately schedule a UX audit – it’s cheaper than losing everything.
The most common times to enlist an expert UX audit are:
See some real-world case studies of how a UX audit changed everything for actual companies in our post on the 6 signs you need a UX audit.
Also discover the benefits of inventory technology integrated for more competitive retail operations.
First, don’t hesitate, UX audits are comparatively cheap and fast. Secondly, get in touch with experts. We at Specno provide UX audits as a service, and we’ve helped literally 100s of companies across numerous industries achieve amazing results through enhanced UX design.
What’s more, we get all hands on board with a free strategy session with you and our team (just click to connect below), so you get immediate and actionable insights even before the audit fully begins. Discover how long UX audit should take and use this framework for your user engagement strategy.
Need a UX audit? Set up a free strategy call with our UX experts right now.
