UX audit - the art of constructive criticism in 10 points

It is my personal experience, but I think I am not alone in my experience, that when something goes wrong around the house and I call in new professionals to assess the current situation, they almost always say that the previous team was completely amateurish, they did everything wrong. But now! They've finally solved my problem properly - even if, unfortunately, they have to replace everything. I always remind myself that the previous team said the same thing, almost word for word, 1-2 years ago. What a coincidence, right? Unfortunately, I see a bit of a similarity in the UX audit best practice in the market. Patterns and reflexes have developed that I think are a major barrier to the development of digital services through audits, and many people are rightly reluctant to engage in any form of such a process.

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But a UX audit, done right, is one of the best things that can happen to a digital service.

UX analysis is only good if it finds millions of errors (?)

As the owner of a digital product, it's easy to wonder whether your app/portal/software is working properly. There are several ways to look at the problem: SEO, Marketing, Pagespeed, or even the user experience. If for some reason you are worried that you are not following the best UX solutions, it is a good idea to hire a company to conduct a UX audit. However, the question arises: are you sure you want to hear that you should throw out your current interface and design a completely new one? Let's face it, this is very often the lesson to be learned, as the new expert is paid to find bugs, so the easiest way to show impressive results is to actually register a lot of significant errors. In addition, as a designer by profession, he or she may well be motivated to replace the previous team and become the new designer. Of course, I do not exclude that there are cases where the client would really be best served by doing so. It may indeed be that the current solution is lousy, it should be replaced and the new team should be hired to design the new scythe.

But is it always like this?

Of course not - there is no infinite budget, and certainly no infinite time. And building a new website/app typically requires a significant investment, and it only makes sense to build a new solution from scratch in justified cases. If a UX audit makes an unsubstantiated suggestion to trash an otherwise still highly improvable solution, it will cost the client much more than fixing a few bugs. Moreover, it is not at all certain that the new instrument will play better.

I have also had the pleasure of being the subject of a UX audit and I would like to share an enlightening experience. A long-standing application of ours was reviewed by a team of external experts and received a devastating critique. We received 100+ errors in tabular form with no ideas for solutions. I think the team did not come up with Quickwin suggestions because their assessment was that there was "unfortunately" no point in improving or developing this solution, our client would be much better off building the app from scratch - with them of course. To put the story in perspective, I should mention that it was a fairly popular and profitable app, with a rating of around 4.2 - 4.3 stars in Google Play and Apple App Store with thousands of reviews, and that it recouped the cost of its development within 3 (!) months back then.

At first it feels bad to read something like this, but our client wanted our opinion and asked us to look at the suggestions and indicate what and how they could be improved. After our first impressions, we started to look at the list of errors more objectively and although there were many errors that were debatable or that were just duplications of an earlier error (audit with many errors = good audit), there were still many observations that were worth addressing and it was good that they were brought to the table. Reading some of them reminded us that we ourselves had once indicated that a particular feature could be improved, but it never became a project. After gathering all of these and suggesting solutions, we came up with a very forward-looking UX facelift project, which we had the pleasure of finally implementing.

Balance: improving the user experience with constructive criticism

I think the story contains both the good and the bad side of UX audits. It is definitely positive that we could talk about gaps and areas for improvement. Such comments can be made by the existing design/development team, but from the client side, there is a suspicion that the main goal is to motivate a new order from the service provider side. From this point of view, it may indeed be easier for a third party - not interested - to suggest areas for improvement. It is also very helpful to have someone outside with fresh eyes looking at the process, as sometimes a designer has been too involved with a particular interface and may have overlooked certain parts. So an external expert's perspective, applied with empathy, can be very useful in a product design process.

But this is not the only way. It is also possible to apply the audit methodology with the existing design team. The question arises, of course, that if a designer finds flaws in his own work, why didn't he come up with a better solution in the first place? From a designer's point of view, it's a bit different, but it also raises the question: 'Should I criticise my own work in front of the client? Is that a good idea?" But what we forget is that all really good market-leading software has gone through many iterations and it is because of these minor or major changes that they have achieved the high quality that has made them market leaders. Indeed, maintaining this approach ensures that they are always evolving and adapting to current trends. So there is no shame in later inventing something even better than a previously designed solution. In addition, unlike an external expert, an internal person has the "local knowledge" and can constantly monitor the impact of each development, what users complain about, the legal environment, the development framework, etc. This way of monitoring the user experience is what we call UX tracking, but it is actually a systematic examination of the aspects that arise during audits.

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Whether you're doing a UX audit with an external or internal team, I think some preconceptions and bad practices need to be let go of for the process to be truly successful. As we've grown professionally with 22 Design, we've put more and more emphasis on developing our own UX audit methodology, and I'd like to share the essence of this methodology, which we've summarized in a 10-point list.

What does a really super UX audit look like?

• Prepared by an experienced industry expert: This may seem an obvious point, but it's worth spending a little time on. A really good expert should have a toolbox or, if you like, a solution toolbox on the subject that he or she can draw on when examining a particular interface. For example, if you are auditing an ecommerce system, you would do well to use us at 22.design, as we have designed millions of ecommerce sites and have encountered many situations. But we wouldn't recommend ourselves for analysing a fitness app at the moment, as we haven't really done anything like that.
• We know why we do it: a good audit defines exactly the business objectives for which the digital product exists and to which objectives the audit is being conducted. Do you have a sales platform? Then the key is to get higher conversions and that's what we work for. Do you have a subscription-based education product? The aim is to get customers to open it as often as possible and spend a lot of time in it, reducing churn. Do you have a back office web application for some workflow? Get colleagues to do their work as efficiently as possible, make it faster, easier, save on labour costs. Stb. Don't UX in general, have a clear business goal, this should be the auditor's need!
• The audit is not a battle: it is very important to look at the interfaces objectively during the audit, not just to spot the errors, but to see how relevant they are. It's easier for an external expert to be unbiased in principle, as it's not about his own team's plans, he has no motivation to cover up embarrassing mistakes. However, if he comes with the intention of knocking out the previous team, the audit result will be distorted and counterproductive. As an auditor, you should be aware that you are only really helping if you prepare your analysis in a strictly professional manner, without ulterior motives. If your work is audited, it is also good not to treat the situation as an attack. In the right case, the comments are there to improve the design, it is not a good default position to try to convince the client that every flaw is actually good as it is. Last but not least, the client also has a big responsibility to make sure that such a situation is really about improving the product and not about a joyless skirmish between two UX teams.
• Part of the routine: often, once a product has gone live, the collaboration between the design team and the client essentially ceases. Even the best design process can result in a very good user interface at best, but certainly not a perfect one. The arrival of real users always reveals information that can be used to make the solution even better. Therefore, it is not worth waiting for years when the solution is really significantly outdated, but it is very much worth looking at a certain frequency (e.g. quarterly) to see where improvements could be made. A UX audit is a great tool for this and regular UX tracking is even better. As a client, you're doing yourself a huge favour by encouraging your team to find bugs and areas for improvement. It helps a lot if, even when you find an annoying bug, you try to appreciate that at least now you know about it and it can be fixed.
• It's based on real user feedback: it's a fact that an industry expert can probably give you some insightful ideas from a review of an interface that are useful. But feedback from target users is even more relevant - and usually leads to wiser conclusions. Usability testing, interviews, user questionnaires, customer service feedback, analytics - all tools that can provide incredibly valuable insights into where the real stumbling blocks are in the process. If an internal team is conducting the audit, this aspect is even more valuable.
• Structured: an audit should state what it is about and what criteria it is looking at. This helps maintain focus both when preparing the analysis and when reading the evaluation. It can be a good basis, for example, to define certain heuristics and to specify which journeys you want to focus on. Another aspect of structure is the ease with which the analysis can be interpreted. A good audit will typically deliver a large amount of data in a more raw (e.g. tabular) format, but also in a management presentation that highlights the key points.
• He also lists arguments for and against: a characteristic of a high-level audit is that it not only registers the error in a given observation, but also takes time to consider the pros and cons of a solution in a complex situation. Don't believe analyses that are perfectly free from doubt, nobody is omniscient. It is worth looking at an issue from several angles.
• Prioritise: the audit should be able to distinguish between significant and less significant errors. It is the responsibility of the analyst to look at this in terms of user experience, but it is also very valuable to have an insight into the complexity of implementing each problem.
• It proposes a Next step: it does not just address the fact of the deadlock, but also suggests possible solutions. Where possible, it can also list quickwins, but this is of course not applicable to all problems. If no solution is proposed, it may also be a valuable guide to the research steps that could be taken to develop a better solution. In many cases, this is a much more useful approach than convincing the client to implement a possible solution, where the belief in its success is not well founded.
• Grounded in reality: a good audit takes into account feasibility and realistic frameworks. If there is a way to do it, it can identify elements that can be improved within the logic of the existing system, and does not assume that the castle must be rebuilt from scratch.

As a self-reflective UX designer, I have to say:

The aspects listed are based on personal experience, which not only strengthens their validity but also their subjective nature. I am sure that additional aspects can be listed, which, if validated, can make a UX audit even more effective. I would be happy to add any additional points to this list! I feel it is good to have a dialogue on this topic, because it is a tool that, if used empathetically and well, can be very valuable and can produce results that are beneficial to all parties. Can you share your views with us? Or would you like us to test your app/website along these principles? Contact us and we'll help!

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