Why a UX Audit is one of the best investments you can make for your product.

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User experience is a fundamental component for organisations to uncover which areas of their product are working well and where there is room for improvement. You cannot fix what you don’t know is broken. In this article, we share what a UX Audit involves, why it’s important for the success of your digital solution, the key benefits and what you can expect to invest in this service. 

What is a UX Audit?

A UX Audit, also known as a usability audit, is a preventative check from a user’s viewpoint to determine potential usability issues with your product experience.  

An impactful UX Audit not only reveals problems with your product but provides you with recommendations and actions to solve them and ultimately build a seamless user journey. 

The type of experience your users have with your product will highly influence whether they remain engaged. A UX Audit can provide value across all stages. No matter if it’s in the early stages of design, the prototyping phase, development, or the market. 

How are UX Audits conducted?

There are two UX Audit options you can choose to implement. The first is considered an expert review, an audit conducted by a UX professional to pinpoint usability problems and strengths. It draws on UX best practices, available user research and insights the business has already collected. 

The expert review involves walking through your key user journeys and performing a UX and UI review to learn where design impacts the experience. 

1. The first step of an expert review involves holding a session with your organisation to understand who your users are, your goals for the audit, what user interactions you want to focus on, and what your overarching business objectives are.
2. The UX professional will then put themselves in the shoes of a user and walk through your product, documenting at what points the interaction was confusing, what worked well and what didn’t. The review allows us to identify opportunities and guide your business’s growth. This unbiased perspective will help to approve or disprove assumptions and is backed up by any user research your business currently has.
3. The final deliverable is a detailed report, followed by a meeting to discuss any questions. You will be supplied with recommendations, suggested solutions and a prioritisation matrix of issues. The insights will shape roadmaps, quick wins and strategic design decisions to optimise product performance and usability.

The second type of UX Audit combines an expert review, user research, and usability testing to validate assumptions and ideas.  

Usability testing involves observing users using your product. Set tasks will uncover the flaws and strengths of your current solution. There is immense value in this type of UX Audit as you receive both an expert point of view and user data that validates observations and suggestions. 

Why is conducting a UX Audit important?

A UX Audit can be a game-changer for your product and be the answer to uncovering poor product performance and low revenue. Often your biggest challenge is that you don’t know the cause. 

This is when getting an unbiased, comprehensive evaluation from someone outside your business is highly beneficial. Looking at the agriculture industry, many farmers and growers are loyal to using technology that has a simple interface and is easy to adopt. With word of mouth being a key sales generator in this field, one negative review can significantly impact your business.

A UX Audit can better the overall user experience by conveying a fresh analysis of your product. Whether that’s interface improvements of your software, how easy the hardware is to set up and use on-site, or how the hardware and software connect. All of these touch points can impact conversions and user retention.

A satisfying user experience translates into customer happiness and loyalty, where users will want to recommend your product to others.

Benefits of a UX Audit for your business.

Gain a fresh, unbiased perspective.

When working closely with your product, you know it so well that it’s challenging to single out issues, strengths and opportunities. However, a fresh perspective from a UX professional will help optimise product performance and user experience and drive innovation.

Rediscover your users.

Businesses usually have assumptions about their users and how they use their product. A UX Audit helps businesses empathise more with real people using their product and bring users back to centre stage. 

Allow decisions to be based on data, not assumptions.

A UX Audit ensures your design decisions are drawn from data gathered and gets to the root cause of your product issues. UX Audits factor in your business goals and look into the metrics of sales data, traffic, engagement, competitive analysis, user research and usability heuristics (principles designers follow to optimise user experience)

A UX Audit will let you know how to boost conversions by making it easier for users to achieve their goals for your software.

Save on development costs.

Not fully understanding what problem you’re solving for users can result in high sunk costs in development. A UX Audit provides a roadmap and recommendations for your product before it enters the design or redesign phase. This ensures the necessary features are built with intention in mind.

Identify opportunities to innovate and scale.

Businesses cannot survive or be profitable without growth or direction. A UX Audit can help you identify opportunities, increase the value of your product and brand, and enhance the user experience. Conducting a UX Audit is beneficial whether you’re moving your prototype into development, during development, or a rebrand.

Manage time with actionable insights.

Time is precious, and having professionals like Bo Studio complete a UX Audit for you, will save you time. Tapping into expertise means the job gets done faster and to a higher standard, allowing you to concentrate on moving to the next phase of the product quicker and with confidence.

You know you want to optimise your resources, prioritise efforts and ensure you get a return on investment with your digital product. A UX Audit is the way to achieve this.

How much does a UX Audit cost?

Whether you’re in the early design stage, the development phase, or find your product isn’t converting or performing, start making improvements by investing in a UX Audit.

At Bo Studio, our pricing starts from $2,800 AUD. The pricing will vary depending on the number of screens and user journeys and the user research and usability testing required.

How long is the process for a UX Audit?

Bo Studio typically completes an expert review within 2 to 3 weeks. If you’re looking to include usability testing, it can take up to 4 weeks or longer due to the process of recruiting and engaging with participants.