I am often asked to share feedback about websites and mobile apps. Having appraised, reviewed and audited dozens or even hundreds of online solutions in terms of user experience and design, it’s fair to say that I’ve noticed some patterns emerge.
Some sites are beautiful, but they don’t convert. Others have a well thought out information hierarchy, but fail to build trustworthy relationships with clients due to glitches in design. Whether it’s about your user flows or the consistency of look and feel, it’s worth understanding the key areas that would benefit from user-centric tweaks.
I have decided to compile the most common and easy to spot issues into a checklist.
A good starting point
This is by no means a full website UX audit. Different types of sites and apps have different goals and diverse features that need to be included. But it’s a great starting point to pinpoint the most pressing issues that can be surprisingly easy to address.
Before we dive into colors, buttons, and URLs, let’s begin with the basics to ensure main business goals and user needs are clear and fulfilled.
User needs
- Do you offer the user a clear benefit/solution to his problem?
- Does your user know what to do to get the benefit/solution?
- Does the user understand what the product/service is about?
- Does the user know what to do next?
Business goals
- Are you building awareness of your product/service on the first page?
- Do you use clear CTAs (Call to action) to collect leads/user information?
Branding and look & feel
If you’ve read my post about good graphic design, you might remember that aesthetics are important. Get them right and everything works and they just make things work better. Why? Because beautiful interfaces make us feel good, and this feeling evokes a creative mindset, making us more creative and more tolerant to minor flaws. Look & feel plays also play a significant role in building trustworthy relationships.
- Does your brand or trademark identify the product or service the website is about?
- Does your tagline make the purpose of your product or service clear?
- Is the brand logo prominent on the website?
- Is your design appealing?
- Are the colors used on the website consistent and limited to a handful?
- Are the colors matching the brand mark?
- Does the choice of colors bear meaning/function?
- Is the typography legible and consistent across the website?
- Are all photos and images relevant to the content?
- Are all photos and images consistent across the website?
- If you use special effects, do they add value? Do they reinforce a key message?
- Do you have enough white space between content?
Information architecture
The user might be amazed by the visuals, but it’s not enough if he doesn’t know how to navigate the website and spot the most relevant information. Make sure your information hierarchy is reflecting your website goals.
- Is the key information on the site visible without scrolling?
- Is it easy to identify the main navigation?
- Does the user know where he is?
- Is your contact information visible throughout the site?
- Is it easy to find information about the company?
- Is your logo linked to the homepage?
- Is the information hierarchy clear? Are the most important things displayed most prominently?
- Are the buttons understandable and well visible?
- Are the buttons placed on the axis of interaction? (the space in which your user logically expects to find them)
- Are the key buttons (like save, buy, share) more visible due to their size or more saturated color?
Content
Users are visiting your website with specific intentions or goals in mind. The quality of the content they find at the end of the journey will determine whether they will buy your product, register on your site, or leave and never come back. Make sure your content is curated.
- Is the vocabulary simple enough for all users to understand?
- Are the texts proofread?
- Is the content easy to read?
- Is the content relevant?
- It the content concise and explanatory?
- Is the content varied?
- Is the content up to date?
- Are the headers clear and descriptive?
- Are the URLs short and memorable?
Accessibility
And finally all the above won’t make sense if your website is not accessible. Long page loading time can discourage the most engaged users. The increasing primacy of the mobile phone as a conduit for web access means that device optimization is no longer an optional feature, it is now integral to your UX strategy. Actually, Google has announced that this year it will employ mobile-first indexing, meaning it will predominantly use the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.
Make accessibility your priority, it’s really worth it.
- Is your page loading time reasonable?
- Is your website responsive and accessible on different devices?
- Is the contrast between the background and text adequate to ensure readability?
- Is the font size and spacing good enough to ensure readability?
- Do all images have ALT and TITLE tags?
- Do you have a custom 404 page?
- Are the links consistent and easy to identify?
- Is your site compliant with all popular browsers?
And one final bonus item on the list:
- Do you use analytics to track your users’ activity and behavior?
One step further
If you’ve managed to tick off all the point from the list – congratulations! There’s a high chance you have all you need and no urgent improvement are needed.
But if your website is not converting in the way you want, maybe it’s time to take this checklist a step further and perform a UX audit. An audit is a process employing various methods, tools, and metrics to determine what is wrong (and right) with your website or app.
Business and user objectives will be reviewed, compliance with UX standards will be checked, traffic and engagement will be carefully analyzed at each user interaction stage.
Even if you have experts in all these areas in your company, it’s recommended to reach to an external auditor. Why? Because it can be hard for people already integrated in the team to distance themselves from the product. Prejudice will impact the audit process. Designers and developers might be so familiar with the site, that it’s almost impossible for them to spot certain flaws.
Reach out
This checklist will probably evolve over time and first drafts usually have a long way to go before they’re perfect. If you have some suggestions at this point, please don’t hesitate to let me know, I’ll gladly add them to the next checklist versions.
If you feel I can help you with uncovering areas of improvement of your product, I’ll be happy to help. If you want to take this list with you to meetings, feel free to download the A4 print-friendly version. And if you’ve enjoyed it, feel free to share it on social media with your friends and colleagues.
Good luck!