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A website is the business card of a company, an enterprise or a self-employed freelancer. According to the principle "what you see is what you are judged by", the impression your website makes on your users, potential customers, determines whether they will come back to you and whether they will turn from potential customers into actual customers.
Errors, difficulties, lack of intuitive solutions or complicated navigation can effectively discourage and scare away. Therefore, it is worth verifying your website in terms of its usefulness for recipients to remove any difficulties and make it easier to use. This is achieved through a professional usability audit, also known as a UX audit.
This is an independent inspection by a specialist who, using various control methods, checks the quality of your website in terms of its usefulness for the target group. Looks for possible errors and problems. Each of them should be described along with the proposed solution. Only in this way will it be possible to improve the analyzed website.
A UX usability audit should be conducted based on the auditor's knowledge and experience. Not only individual screens and subpages should be examined, but also the entire process, e.g. leading to placing an order, signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form with data. Only by completing each process will you be able to spot any errors and problems that a website user may encounter.
A UX usability audit of a website should be carried out using various methods. It then allows you to spot errors at various levels. This method of operation gives a more complete and comprehensive picture. It allows you to create a full list of things to improve or shows that the website is designed without any reservations.
The first method should always be a "cognitive walk". This is a method of simulating typical, normal user actions. What can he look for on the website and how will he do it? What helps him when looking for information that interests him, and what hinders and hinders him from doing so.
If it is possible to place an order, please go through this procedure from the beginning. What makes shopping easier? What makes it difficult? Is it easy to find the transaction summary, is redirection to payment smooth? This is all very important. This is how every process should be completed.
See our website design guide, where we describe the stages of its implementation.
In accordance with general recommendations provided by various authors, the interface is analyzed in terms of its usability. Depending on which author's concept is chosen, this analysis is more or less complex. For example, Nielsen and Molich provide 10 principles of usability, Schneiderman provides eight, and Connell provides thirty. Of course, there is no need to use all of these heuristics. You can choose one proposal and base your research on it.
For example, Nielsen's heuristics are listed below, i.e. those most often used in auditing:
Let the customer know at what stage of the order he is or what next steps await him.
The website must be understandable to every user.
(e.g. the content on the website should be clear and understandable to the user, menu items may be supported by icons, e.g. the website menu marked No. 1 in the screenshot below)
Let them cancel the order or withdraw from the sales process, this will prevent them from feeling enslaved and limited.
Buttons in the same colors, subpages in the same style. Develop a Design System.
(note the red circles with numbers in the screenshots below - after entering the product, the user receives a highlighted 'select a size' button (no. 1), only after selecting the size does the 'Add to Cart' button light up)
Don't waste a user's time looking for something that's not available.
Instructions for completing the form should be next to the form, not on the form, the information needed to place an order should be at hand without going to the previous page.
One customer will look for shoes by color, another by size, and the third will take both parameters into account. Let them do it.
The appearance of your website or store is important. Do not overload either with graphics or information.
Errors may occur. However, if the customer lands on a subpage with an error, he or she should have clear instructions on what he or she can do now.
It is worth introducing a "help" or "frequently asked questions" box, this will allow customers to find each other better and dispel any doubts they may have.
You can see that the list is quite general and you need a lot of experience to implement it. That's why you need a specialist for this. Of course, the examples provided are intended to suggest possible interpretations of these heuristics. However, these are only examples, not strict and precise guidelines for conducting a UX audit.
We would add from ourselves
Check if the user is able to:
This is a set of very precise instructions, among which you can only answer "yes" or "no". The analyzed website cannot partially meet the indications listed in this method. However, the checklist requires a lot of experience. The usability tips listed here are numerous and very detailed, and not all of them need to be applied everywhere. However, what and where can be waived can only be concluded based on the party being audited, its target group and the knowledge and experience of the auditor. It is worth building such a list yourself based on experience and audits carried out. Ultimately, the goal of auditing is to increase conversions. It is often possible through experiments and trials.
First of all, it indicates the weak places of the website. It shows where the user might get lost or upset. It tells you which places prevent the purchase from being completed, prevent the customer from completing the process or not starting the process on the website at all. Why do users leave the website after a short visit, and even reaching the very end of the process (ordering or leaving data) does not involve pressing the "buy" or "send" button.
However, just knowing what is wrong is one thing. A thoroughly conducted UX audit should also suggest appropriate solutions. It could be :
A UX audit should answer the question why users behave the way they do. Answer yes, no guess.
The list of indications and recommendations should be specific. You need to write new content, design a new website menu, synchronize the payment system with the ordering system, and attach a freebie to the form that will encourage users to leave their e-mail address. Thanks to this, the audited website becomes better, more efficient and more user-friendly. The person managing the website can observe much better conversion rates. More people order a given product or leave their details in the form. There are more open processes, and of those open, many more come to an end.
– a way to consciously design
To sum up, a UX audit is a way to improve an already designed website to make it more accessible to users, help them find the information they need and encourage them to interact, which ultimately translates into the website owner's financial results.
Comments from our community for the post:
Great article that brings this topic to the max
JANUSZ KAMIŃSKI
Great article. Congratulations and thank you for the additional knowledge :)
SŁAWEK Z NETTERIA.NET
Great article, for people who are green in the subject, it will definitely help them.
NIEZWIAZANI
Valuable tips and useful knowledge. Regards
ULA
I would also add the speed of the store to the list. Recently I encountered a store where it took a dozen or so seconds to load to the basket. I gave up shopping because I had the impression that it would never load.
MICHAŁ
Very nice article. I will need it soon, because I'm starting to play around with various things in this field.
ART-KRIS
It seems so obvious, but still, for example, in many online stores you can get lost. A must-read not only for website owners.
MAMA MARKETING
A very nice guide, it will be very useful, thank you and best regards
IRENEUSZ
Great guide, very useful for beginners like me, thanks and best regards
KAMIL
A really great guide, it will be useful, there is little such practical knowledge on the Polish Internet.
LECHTRONIK
I learned a lot of things here, I will definitely read more articles, best regards!
DOGO
Great guide, I like it very much, green people like me can see more or less how it works
IZA
UI and UX are a very popular topic right now. Everyone knows what it is about, but not everyone knows how to properly use these practices to build websites. For me, this is just the beginning of my adventure in this field, even though many have been in it for a long time. I wish I had enough strength to bring something meaningful out of it. Thanks for the good content – I took advantage of it
BARTOSZ
Issues related to user experience are a particularly important topic when designing websites. Thanks to user experience, we can design a visual interface in such a way that a potential customer clicks exactly what we want. Moreover, thanks to UX, users can navigate a given website much easier.
BARTŁOMIEJ
Often, when someone I know asks me where to start with UX, I refer them to this post :) Lots of information.
MATEUSZ
Great post! It is worth adding that today's stores and websites often focus on dark mode, which saves batteries in smartphones with OLED and our eyes.
ŁUKASZ
thank you ;)
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