UX audit is not only about pointing out everything that is wrong with an application but also providing solutions around those pain points. A fully fleshed out UX audit could average a period of two weeks and include UX evaluations and user research.

However, I found that having a basic checklist could get you started on your audit journey. The checklist is a good foundation for a UX audit and can be used as a starting point and not as an end goal because different applications present different challenges.

Information Gathering ℹ️

• [ ] Identify the end-user application, in other words, who is the intended user of the application
• [ ] Understand the business goals and how that aligns with the user expectations
• [ ] If there are any existing documentation, it would help a ton to review those docs
• [ ] Gather as much data as possible both qualitative and quantitative data.
• [ ] Analyze research to find trends and tendencies

Application Checklist

Perform a simple usability walkthrough of the application. Below is a checklist I like to use for a usability walkthrough.

Navigation/Information Architecture 🧭

• [ ] Information Architecture should be obvious to the end-user — i.e content should be easily scannable. Users should be able to move back and forth where reasonably expected.
• [ ] Information should start with most important to least important
• [ ] User can navigate back and forth any wizard or pages
• [ ] A search bar is present and visible on every page for larger applications
• [ ] Related information should be grouped together
• [ ] Navigation should be consistent on every page
• [ ] Information on the website looks credible. References, where needed, are provided.
• [ ] Contact information is visible as well as a business location. Usually placed as the last item in a navigation menu and footer area. Depending on the end goal of the application, contact us should be placed to reflect business goals. For example, the business goal is to reduce the number of users contacting the business, then contact us shouldn’t be on the menu but rather the footer area.
• [ ] Users can skip irrelevant tasks