Behaviour Measured
Where users stop, by task, cohort and device.
UX Audit
UX Audit That Measures Where Users Fail and What It Costs
An expert review produces a list of things a reviewer would have done differently, which is a preference document. A UX audit should produce evidence: where users actually fail, how often, what it costs, and which two or three failures are worth fixing before the rest.
Findings Come With Evidence
A finding without a measurement cannot survive an internal argument, and most of them do not.
Users Observed
Because aggregate data locates a problem without explaining it.
Ranked by Cost
Not by section, and not thirty findings of equal weight.
Accessibility Included
Manually, not only by automated check.
Actionable Output
What to change and what to expect, not a list of principles.
UX Audit, Explained
What Does an Audit Examine?
Four sources, and the strongest evidence comes from combining them.
Request an Audit →- 1
Usage Data
What people do, where they stop, which paths they never take.
- 2
Observed Sessions
Real attempts at real tasks, watched.
- 3
Support Volume
What people cannot work out, already categorised.
- 4
Expert Review
Useful for mechanical issues and weakest on comprehension.
What a UX Audit Covers
Evidence gathered, findings ranked, changes specified.
For a website rather than a product, see website design audit.
How We Audit a Product
Gather evidence from several sources, then rank by what each failure costs.
Define the Tasks
What the product is for, expressed as things people do.
Measure Completion
How often each task succeeds.
Observe Failures
Watching what happens when it does not.
Rank by Cost
Frequency times consequence, not by severity label.
Specify Changes
Concrete enough to be implemented.
Method
Why Expert Review Alone Is the Weakest Evidence
A reviewer who understands the product cannot experience it as someone who does not.
What can an expert not see?
Comprehension. Once you know what a label means, you cannot un-know it, and every ambiguity that confuses real users reads as clear.
Expert review is genuinely useful for mechanical problems — inconsistent patterns, accessibility failures, states that were never designed. Those do not require a naive reader.
For anything involving understanding, five observed sessions produce more than any amount of review, because confusion has to be witnessed rather than predicted.
How should findings be ranked?
By frequency multiplied by consequence, not by how serious the problem sounds. A minor irritation on the most-used screen usually costs more than a severe failure in a feature few people reach.
Severity labels attached by the reviewer are a proxy for this and a poor one, because they reflect how bad something looks rather than how much it happens.
Ranking properly usually shortens the report considerably, which is the point — a client can act on three ranked findings and cannot act on thirty unranked ones.
Questions,answered.
A UX audit examines an existing product to find where users fail — through usage data, observed sessions, support volume and expert review — and ranks the findings by what each failure costs.
An expert review is one person's opinion. An audit combines that with measurement and observation, because a reviewer who understands the product cannot experience it as someone who does not.
By frequency times consequence. A small irritation on the most-used screen usually costs more than a severe problem in a feature few people reach, which severity labels do not capture.
Fewer than most audits produce. Three ranked findings can be acted on; thirty unranked ones cannot, and length is a poor proxy for usefulness.
For a marketing site rather than a product, see website design audit. The methods overlap; the tasks being measured do not.
Still deciding if ux audit is right for you?
Talk to UsThe Reviewer Already Knew What It Meant
Expert review is fast, cheap and requires no participants, which is why most UX audits are built on it. A skilled reviewer walks the product and lists what is wrong.
They walk it knowing what every label means, what each screen is for, and where things live — knowledge they acquired in the first hour and cannot set aside afterwards.
Every ambiguity that stops real users reads to them as perfectly clear. It is the one category of problem the method cannot detect, and it is usually the category doing the most damage.
Free Initial Review
Find Out Where Your Product Loses People
Give us access to your product and its usage data. We will measure where tasks fail and rank what is worth fixing.
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