UX Research
How to do a UX audit: a step-by-step guide for founders and product teams
· 8 min read
A UX audit is a structured review of your website or app that finds the usability problems stopping people from completing their goals. Done well, it ends opinion-based debates and gives your team a clear, prioritised list of what to fix. This is the process we use.
Step-by-step UX audit process
Work through these steps in order — each one sharpens the next.
- 1. Align on business goals and the key conversions each page exists to drive
- 2. Review analytics to find where users drop off in each funnel
- 3. Run a heuristic evaluation against Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics
- 4. Walk every key journey on mobile and desktop, noting friction
- 5. Benchmark against top-performing competitors in your market
- 6. Document issues with annotated screenshots
- 7. Prioritise recommendations by impact vs. effort
UX audit vs. CRO audit vs. conversion audit
The terms overlap. A UX audit focuses on usability; a CRO or conversion audit focuses on the numbers. The most useful audits combine both: usability evidence tied directly to conversion impact.
Want an expert to run the audit for you?
We deliver a full UX and conversion audit — annotated report, competitor benchmark and prioritised roadmap — in 72 hours.