First off, Brand Labs must stress that a UX Audit is nothing like that of the Internal Revenue Service: we won’t go back 3 years; you don’t have to confirm expenses; and we definitely won’t show up unexpectedly.
Whew. Now that that’s out of the way… It shows here that you donated $500 in stock photography but didn’t include Form 8283 for this…
So, what’s a UX Audit and why do you need it?
Think how quickly things in the IT realm change. Now think about how often a business updates its site, whether it be product, design or even compliance related. Because of this, it’s challenging to maintain perfect design consistency, especially when you have multiple teams working on the same digital product.
A UX audit (or UX review) is a quality assurance (QA) process that reviews an existing digital product to ensure it meets business, user experience and accessibility requirements. Periodic UX design audits allow designers to evaluate a site (or product) to identify continuity, consistency, accessibility, and usability issues with the sole goal of reducing errors while increasing reliability, functionality, and collaboration as it relates to your ecommerce platform.
Some of the basic things a UX audit will uncover include everything from broken links, design inconsistencies and outdated content all the way to customer bottlenecks and roadblocks, traffic, engagement, conversion rates, retention, and sales analytics, and even legal compliance.
So, you’re likely asking, “How can a broken link affect my sales?” Imagine a user searching the internet for something specific that you just happen to sell (or did). Now imagine them, after hours, days or even weeks of searching, stumble upon your site. “Eureka!” they say only to click the link to find that it’s no longer valid (maybe a 404) or even worse it’s no longer available. It doesn’t make a good first impression (and will likely lead to the user going out of their and use the “Contact Us” page to let you know a thing or two).
Not having a fully functional, fully jibing site creates hurdles that only serve to slow customers’ abilities to get what they want and get out. Period. Ensuring nothing gets in the way of this is the best business practice a company can implement to protect its reputation, clientele and bottom line.
What does our UX Audit include?
- A Discovery session to uncover goals and intended outcomes to determine best courses of action: new design, improved user experience, platform migration
- Heuristics website review to determine whether general principles of interactive design are being leveraged (these are broad rules of thumb, not specific usability guidelines)
- Review existing analytics, i.e., where visitors go, drop off, abandon, spend time, etc.
- Review your site’s core UX/UI: blank state (look/feel), working state (interactions/ outcomes), error state (something went wrong)
- Deliver data-driven UX recommendations
Has your site gone through a lot of changes without having undergone any of the fine tuning and cleaning that should accompany them? Has there been a sudden change in customer behavior, like drop-off interaction and cart abandonment have increased? Or are you considering redesigning your site or migrating to a new platform? A UX audit might be in order.
Let Brand Labs take a look under your site’s hood to ensure you’re delivering for your customers, preserving their user experience, and keeping them coming back so you can maximize sales while lowering costs.