UX Audit can be taken into your own hands. Below you will read what it is when it needs to be done, what it gives, what sources and audit methods to use. The material is suitable for website owners, copywriters, and marketers.
Why Do I Need To Do UX Audits?
Proper UX auditing solves specific and measurable tasks. This is an opportunity to find out what difficulties the user faces on the site, why he leaves. The elimination of these problems will affect the loyalty of users, their willingness to move from potential to active customers. With a bonus, strengthen your position in the market relative to your competitors – the more manageable the site is to master, the more likely it is that, all other things being equal, the buyer will use it.
What Is Included In The UX Audit?
UX audit is an approach that is used to approve design decisions and even business decisions. Who wouldn’t want to make sure that their strategy is correct before implementing it?
For this type of audit, there is a set of methods to identify the weaknesses of your site, determine how many buyers are currently converting them, and find ideas to develop the best solution to meet your goal.
When You Need A UX Audit
Decide the need for an audit based on the analysis of metrics. Otherwise, don’t break what works. It’s time to do UX if:
- users come to the site but do not perform targeted actions;
- in the process of buying a product, users fall off;
- users spend little time on the site, do not move beyond the first screen;
- the interface is overloaded: useless sections and categories, incomprehensible functionality.
If the site has technical problems, fix them. If there is no traffic to the site – figure out why. But don’t bet on UX auditing. In these cases, it is useless and even harmful – you will spend time on improvements that are not the root cause of the resource’s problems and still not get the result.
Where To Start?
The basis of the basics is setting goals. But, first, take a look at the site and answer the questions:
- What does it exist for? What is the value to the user?
- What do you want to achieve with an audit? How will you evaluate the result?
- What forces will you use to introduce improvements?
Next, decide on the page for UX audit:
- Look at the login pages and select the one in demand (this is not necessarily the main one – users may often come for low-frequency requests).
- Analyze its key indicators (the number of calls or clicks, registration, time on the site, bounces) – they will be needed to find out the reasons for the sagging pages.
- Select the sources and the method.
The Audit Method Of The UX Interface “Checklist”
Probably you have already used checklists, and this method will not be new for you. To conduct a UX audit, use the “Usability Checklist: 200 + points to check”. Check how user-friendly the interface is, and improve the elements with errors.
What Is Good About Checklists:
- they include a lot of points to check: a good checklist takes into account all the interactions on the site, does not let you forget about the details;
- no skills required – you make corrections based on ready-made recommendations.
Negative Aspects Of Using Checklists:
- it is difficult for a non-specialist to determine the quality of the checklist;
- items in some checklists raise questions: they are categorical and do not take into account the variety of business situations;
- there is no explanation on which this or that judgment is based.
I recommend using checklists after the end of the audit to check the work. Do not choose them as an independent method if improvements require financial investments.
Usability Testing
Usability testing consists of asking a potential or current user of a product or service to perform user testing, a set of tasks, and observing their behavior, determine the usability of the product or service. This can be done using a live version of the site or app, a prototype, interactive layouts, or paper and pencil.
Why Is Usability Testing Necessary?
When users first visit a site, they pay attention to the design in the first three seconds. If everything is fine with the design — you will be introduced to the structure, navigation, and content for the next ten seconds. If everything works and the user understands everything, then they will study the material and perform the necessary target action: subscribe, call, purchase a product or use the offered service. If a new user has difficulties in the first 15 seconds, they will close the page and not understand the offer’s essence. If the user remains on the page, but something is unclear, or something is not pleasant, the situation will repeat, and the site will not perform a useful function. $ 1 invested in UX testing questions returns $ 100.
To better understand what the purpose of usability testing is, let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have placed a pop-up window on your site that prompts you to specify your phone number and get a callback from your manager. If site visitors are annoyed by this window, they will study the content and make orders from competitors. In this case, timely usability testing of the site will allow you to quickly detect and fix the problem: the first survey of users will make it clear that the problem is in a pop-up window.
There are trillions of dollars in e-commerce, and due to the lack of user experience reviews, 35% of these funds will be wasted. Suppose, instead of auditing the user interface, you decide to order additional advertising and ignore visitors’ opinions. In that case, the following will happen: After increasing the advertising budget, more traffic will come to the site. Most new users will not like the pop-up window. All dissatisfied visitors will go to competitors who have studied the usability testing guide and made a user-friendly site. The site will still not perform a useful function. Due to the increased advertising costs, the loss will increase. The usability review helps you understand the fundamental issues that affect conversion rates. This is the main task for which it is essential to conduct user research and correct errors on the site.
Conclusion
A UX audit often precedes an Internet site redesign; indeed, it is usually a precursor of ” major works.” UX evolves very quickly, and a website can become outdated very quickly. Often the owner is aware of this.
This is the essence of auditing your UX: you can determine which issues are really important and most beneficial to you. Sometimes you need to spend a little money before you spend a lot of it on solving problems that didn’t exist! Conducting an audit is a good expense, and its payback is usually very high.
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