How UX Audit's Benefit Your Business

Let’s pretend for a second. You own an e-commerce business selling iPhone cases.

Your store is making sales. But conversion rates aren’t hovering around where you think they should be.

Data shows visitors will add items to their cart but never complete the purchase. This happens over and over again – leading to lots of abandoned carts and equally as many questions.

Visitors are clearly in the market for a new phone case. So, what gives? What is it about their experience that causes them to turn away?

Not having a clear answer to questions like this can have you dreaming up endless possibilities about where things could be going wrong.

“Is my product not good enough?”

“Is the checkout process confusing?” 

“Should I offer free shipping?”

“Is my business domain name not appealing?”

You can come up with a million hypotheses, but there’s no knowing where to place blame without taking a close look at the user experience.

What you need is a UX audit, or user experience audit.

What Is A UX Audit?

A UX audit is when an auditor uses empirical methods to discover what is working and what is not within the user experience.

A variety of tools, metrics, and methods are used during an audit, such as:

• Adherence to UX standards
• UX best practices
• Business objectives
• User objectives
• Engagement metrics
• Sales data
• Conversion data
• Mental modeling
• Wireframing
• Usability heuristics

It can shine a light on problems in your product so you know how you can improve upon them to meet business objectives.

A UX audit takes a close look at every element of your user experience, regardless of how inconsequential it may seem.

Is the text easy to read? Do buttons go where they should? Does it load fast enough? Are there concerns over website safety? Are there spelling mistakes?

You get the picture.

But understand that all of these questions are, mostly on a subconscious level, being asked by a user’s brain as soon as they engage with your product. 

There are many elements, both big and small, that make up the overall user experience. Which means everything needs to be placed under a microscope during an audit.

What Are The Benefits For Your Business?

Whether it’s an e-commerce website, mobile app, or software, any digital product can benefit from a UX audit.

A UX audit can achieve several business goals at once. It can increase website conversion rates, improve product usability, tackle user objections, and more.

An audit will help you learn about your audience. Their wants. Their needs. As well as what they don’t want or need.

You’ll get to understand them on a deeper level. By studying their behavior and interactions around your product, you’ll know which aspects of your product need improvement.

This insight into their desires can drive design and functionality decisions to get users to interact with your product the way you want them to. They are more likely to follow the path you set for them.

By taking what you learn from your audit and making the necessary changes, you can achieve many business and product objectives. 

Useful In Testing New Features

Say you’re a mobile app developer. If you’re looking to introduce new features into your app, an audit can indicate how well your new features are being received.

You’ll know whether to scrap the idea or put more effort into it. It may even unlock new ideas for features you never would’ve dreamt up otherwise.

Not only can a UX audit be used in testing an existing product, but the same processes can also be used to validate ideas for new products before they’re developed. Doing so can save time and money as you’ll be more flexible and agile in your product development.

When Should You Perform A UX Audit? 

Any time.

You can be in the early stages of a product or have an established product that’s been in market for years - there’s no perfect time to perform an audit.

When you need recommendations on how to improve your product, a UX audit will help you achieve that regardless of how far along you are in the product’s lifecycle.

Are There Any Downsides To A UX Audit?

A UX audit can take your product to new heights, but it’s not without a few downsides.

It’s a time-consuming and potentially costly endeavor. A proper audit is extremely thorough, looking at a wide variety of factors. So naturally, it will take time and be labor intensive.

There’s also no guarantee it will produce the answers you’re looking for. If recommendations are unrealistic or not actionable, it can be a resource sink with not much to show for.

Conclusion

You could develop a mobile app that rivals Instagram or Tik Tok, but if users have a confusing or aggravating experience as early as the profile setup stage, it will fall into the abyss of mobile apps with amazing potential that failed due to poor execution.

That’s why a UX audit is so incredibly beneficial.

It breaks down barriers of entry and allows users to truly experience what it is you offer – whether it’s quality iPhone cases or the next big thing in social media apps.