The Benefits of Conducting a UX Audit

You have a beautiful website and a perfect range of products. However, the results are not exactly satisfactory. Digging deeper to look for the problem, you may discover unusual visitor behavior. They don’t explore your website as they used to, don’t spend enough time on your pages, and even abandon their shopping carts right before the checkout. Many websites are experiencing these problems. And yet, they often fail to address them.

Chances are, the not-so-good user experience of your website is the reason why it’s not converting and retaining visitors anymore. Because the design trends are changing, technologies in use are evolving, and online visitors are becoming more demanding by the day. Fortunately, a User Experience audit can help you figure out how to adapt to the changes. And understanding the issues and user behavior are just some of the benefits of conducting a UX audit.

Looking in the long term, it’s a necessary starting point on your way to bypass the potential problems and focus more on the user-centric design.

What is a UX audit and what are its benefits?

Whether you have a website, online store, app, or other types of digital product, a UX audit can help you with assessment. It will assist you by collecting all the information and giving you UX recommendations about eliminating existing problems. As a result, your product will evolve into something more compelling for your business and your users as well. In other words, a UX audit can discover what is not working for you and suggest how to fix it.

When and who should conduct a UX audit?

The moment you notice a continuous drop in conversions, increase in bounce rates, and overall lower performance of your digital product. If you don’t have an in-house UX team, hiring professional UX services would be a good move. Assuming your budget allows you, this is a more efficient solution. Mainly because even if you can assemble an in-house team, they might be hindered by their subjective connection.

Third-party UX auditors will collect and analyze the data with:

• User surveys and interviews
• Stakeholder interviews
• The use of different metrics and key points of interest
• Complete heuristic evaluation
• Suggestions about changes and where to focus your attention

If you can’t afford an external UX assessment, you will need to dedicate someone for audit. In that case, the advised course of action is to follow the best practices and conduct an audit with the tools specifically designed for that purpose. Some of the best tools you can use and combine are Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, HotJar, Crazy Egg, UXCam, UserTesting, and others.

The top benefits of a UX audit

A quality conducted UX audit brings many benefits for your digital product. For your average visitor, it will make it easy to use your new user-friendly website and find the necessary information promptly. For you, it will bring more attractive conversion rates and increase your website or app engagement. The best part here is that nothing is based on assumptions. Behind every suggestion, there is a plethora of empirical evidence to support it. You will be able to lean on those conclusions to predict if some changes will happen in the future as well.

Here is a summary of some of the essential benefits of conducting a UX audit:

1. Improvement in user satisfaction
2. Complete analytics of user behavior
3. Conversion rates improvements
4. Fixing the flaws from the design phase
5. Cost-effectiveness

1. Improvement in user satisfaction

Today, user satisfaction is one of the most important prerequisites for success in online and any other type of business. You are halfway through when you know how to provide solutions to your customers’ needs. You will know exactly what to change to appeal to even the most demanding potential customers by conducting a UX audit. As a result, it will motivate them to take more action. At worst, it will prevent them from leaving prematurely.

2. Complete analytics of user behavior

This is done by deep analysis of your visitors’ behavior. Whether by A/B testing, heat signature mapping, or direct surveys. Getting an insight into the user behavior on your website will provide plenty of helpful information.

In general, you can use various tools to check what elements of a website draw the least attention. For example, if your CTA (Call-To-Action) is not giving the desired results and requires adjustments. With a clear picture of user behavior on your website, it’s possible to make modifications, so your pages act more efficiently.

3. Conversion rates improvements

In close connection with satisfaction is an increased chance for conversion. In essence, suggestions from your UX audit team have but one general goal in mind: to convert visitors into customers. Furthermore, to help you retain your existing customers.

With a good base of new and loyal customers, there will be little to no chance of failure.

Of course, the conversion doesn’t come by itself. That’s why a UX audit examines every element of a website, every procedure, and all steps to reduce the bounce rates. For example, dealing with the common causes of cart abandonments for eCommerce websites. People often fill their shopping cart only to abandon it for good after finding checkout options too complex or too demanding. In general, a UX audit will help you discover the reasons and simplify the entire process, so abandonments don’t happen often.

4. Fixing flaws from the design phase

When creating a website or other digital products, you may overlook potential future issues. Without paying attention to all the details early, you are risking facing different problems later on. Some of which you might not be even aware of.

Luckily, a complete UX audit can help you figure if you have missed something during the design phase. And allow you to successfully address those problems by implementing necessary changes. It encompasses everything from text composition, formatting, and language to the layout and functionality of every element.

5. Cost-effectiveness

Of course, like everything related to business, a high return on investment (ROI) is the primary goal. This is one of the main reasons all large companies hire professionals to take care of the UX. On the other side, small businesses are particularly sensitive to UX mistakes. Partially due to high competition and partly due to lower overall brand visibility. The risk of losing a potential customer can mean all the difference between success and failure. While it may look like a considerable investment, the costs of investing in quality UX audits are more than justified by the results. One small mistake in your digital product can be the reason you are missing thousands of potential customers. But, with a thorough and strategical approach of UX analytic, the reports will point precisely toward solutions, saving you a lot of time, effort, and money in the future.

Today, with so many competitors in the market, sometimes it can be tough to stand out. But, far from impossible. With a good combination of marketing and user-experience research, you will have nothing to worry about. By arming yourself with enough relevant data, you will know exactly what calls for changes. After all, one of the most significant benefits of conducting a UX audit, in general, is having the right information at the right moment.