UX Audit - How does it bring value to the company?

What is a UX audit?

You should start with the very definition and explanation of the name, which is a UX audit. If, as an entrepreneur, you are just collecting information about interactive products and developing online products, it will be useful to you when ordering similar services from an interactive agency. With the following information, it will also be easier to verify the final result over time.

Every business has certain goals to achieve. Sometimes it is to get as many inquiries as possible through a form on the website, and others to develop sales results in the store. However, there are situations when something blocks the growth of the company and the goals are not achieved. If such a situation occurs, it should make us think, prompt us to analyze the design and functionality of the site. This is exactly what the UX audit deals with! In other words, usability analysis is the verification of a website for business purposes, examining each of its elements, and finally drawing conclusions and proposing changes. Implementation of the recommendations should result in improved efficiency.

What does a UX (User Experience) audit consist of

The scope of UX audit usually depends on the needs and scope of the project commissioned by the client. However, there is a set of benefits that the company receives as a result of the cooperation undertaken. These include:

• a report with the recommendations of the interactive agency and its broad discussion together with the seconded persons,
• ready-made graphic designs and mockups with recommended changes,
• coding changes, that is, the implementation of previously specified recommendations by the developer.

The whole consists of a comprehensive process, which allows to end the cooperation with a visible effect. The report contains all the conclusions of the conducted research and expert analyses. Constructing mock-ups requires discussing the possibilities with the company team. The second stage, or creation, is the creative work carried out by the agency. It is then that the conclusions are turned into solutions and the company gets a chance to really improve its results. If the constructed mock-ups and graphic designs are accepted, it is possible to implement the described solutions by the developer or the development team depending on the complexity of the project.

Often, companies that already have part of the resources decide to help an external company only to a limited extent. An example would be when a company has developers who can make changes, but it lacks designers and UX specialists. Then it outsources the mentioned part of the work, because only in this way reliable research results become possible.

It is also worth mentioning the scope of the report, which is a very important element of any order carried out as part of the UX audit. In it there are such data as:

• behavior of users based on data from analytical programs (e.g. Google Analytics),
• an outline of a potential customer and his path on the site, that is, in simple terms, the person to whom you are directing the product or service as a company,
• the proposed aesthetic changes, product presentations, references and the philosophy behind these changes,
• feedback on site performance and optimization (responsiveness, mobile-friendliness, security)

Any errors noted in the report are grouped according to their impact on the barrier to achieving business objectives. They are usually divided into critical, medium and basic. As you probably guessed, the critical ones are the most serious and real threats to the proper functioning of your site.

How to check the UX of a store or site during an audit?

Ordering or performing a UX audit with the help of your own specialists will become easier when you understand the whole process. A service is a series of procedures, and skipping selected ones can result in severe consequences in the form of no noticeable effects after the end of the project.

1. Analysis of the company in terms of business - Includes a thorough interview with the principal to develop the appropriate business approach. Checking the site or store accordingly, as well as proposing a solution, requires an individual match.
   
2. In-depth analysis of the interactive product - The moment of the UX audit, which is considered crucial in terms of competence. It is at this point that the impact of UX on sales effectiveness is studied and expert analysis (heuristic or in the form of cognitive wandering) is carried out. If the company has decided to conduct User Experience studies, they are also carried out at this stage.
   
3. Creation of a comprehensive report - The report contains all the elements presented above. The aesthetics of the developed report allows you to easily familiarize yourself with the data and draw conclusions.
   
4. Video conference during which we discuss all issues - The received report is worth discussing to gain confidence that both parties have a similar understanding of the same issues. During such a conversation, the meaning of each of the points is clarified in order to subsequently make a decision on the implementation of further work.
   
5. Designing the planned mockups and graphic designs (UX and UI) - If the proposals and recommendations have been considered feasible within budget, it's time to design. This is the stage where graphic designers and UX designers work together to develop interactive solutions that meet the needs of customers.
   
6. Software, i.e. implementation of solutions - Acceptance of mock-ups results in starting work and programming changes. If the company has decided on a comprehensive UX audit with the implementation of changes, after handing over the finished website or store, it can count on increasing results with the passage of time.

The price of a UX audit and other costs associated with it

The costs associated with the service vary greatly. This is due to the fact that the UX audit sometimes includes expensive User Experience studies. Other times, however, the expert analysis of the designer together with the data from the tools is sufficient. The above stages illustrate to some extent how different the scale of the project can be. Will the client decide on mock-ups and graphic designs, or will the report be enough for him? Will it be necessary to implement the recommended changes or not? By answering these and similar questions, the interactive agency is able to price the service.

The price list of UX audit can range from several hundred zlotys to several dozen or tens of thousands of zlotys. It is precisely because of such large discrepancies that the offer is created individually. It is worth assuming that the contractor also wants the service provided to bring real business benefits.

The impact of UX on the effectiveness of sales in the company

Among other competitors, we should stand out in order to convince potential customers and partners. Sometimes, however, even the best marketing will not fill the gaps that a useless website has. This is because users become more picky about interactive products over time.

They come out when anything on the site is unclear, services are inaccurately described, and the form is too long to fill out. They do not finalize the transaction in the online store, because the path to it is too long and the choice of payment methods is too small. Any lost customer who didn't take the action you care about is a lost profit that might otherwise be in your pocket.

It is in this respect that the UX audit affects the sales and results of the company. The recommendations made allow you to shorten the user's path and make him move around the site with pleasure. Finding a product, finalizing an order, filling out a form or finding a description of a service will no longer be a problem for him. However, in order to adapt the site to the needs of the user, expert knowledge is needed. The UX audit allows you to obtain it and in the case of the correct passage through the process, we are sure to note the long-term benefits of its execution.