DIY UX

AUDIT
Do-it-yourself toolkit to audit
the user experience of your products
and services
 DIY UX AUDIT
Do-it-yourself guide to audit
the user experience of your products & services

2015
1st Prototype

Brought to you by Somia Customer Experience

http://somiacx.com

This work is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
 What is UX Audit?

A user experience evaluation of products & services

to determine its effectiveness
to meet the intended experience goals
of both the customers and the business.
 Why UX Audit?

Conducting UX Audit regularly helps you uncover

experience issues and define ways to continuously
improve to enhance conversion and ensure user
satisfaction.

Good UX ▶ Happy Users ▶ Good Business!

 Why a DIY Toolkit?

We know that UX is too important for every

business to be ignored.

But we recognize that not all businesses have a

dedicated team or person in-house to do this,
or have the budget to hire consultants.

This DIY toolkit provides a step-by-step guide

for anyone to do a simple experience audit.

Yes, anyone.
As long as you can have empathy and
stand in the customers’ shoes. ;)
 Overview

Before jumping to the audit, you need to first:

1.  Understand the Business
2.  Understand the Customers

Then follow these steps to do the audit:

3. Test The First Impression
4. Walk The Journey
5. Inspect The Details
 1
Identify Business Goals
Put on the business hat
 Understand The Business

Put on the business hat while asking the following:

●  What does the business want to achieve by having

the product?

●  What are the indicators of success / KPI?

●  What is the Unique Selling Proposition?

●  What do you want customers to say when they are

talking about the product?
 2
Understand the Customer
Walk in their shoes
Understand The Customers

Step into the customer’s shoes and ask the following:

●  Who are the target customers?

●  What goals do they have?

●  Why do they want to use the product?

●  How do they use the product?

 3
Test the First Impression
Look at the product for 5
seconds:

●  Does the product look inviting?

●  Is it clear what the product is for and why it is

relevant for the user?

●  Is it clear what the user can do?

 4
Walk The Journey
 The Scenarios

List down the scenarios the user can do

e.g.: compare products, trying on product, see
detailed information, filling out order form, make
payment

1.  _______________________________

2.  _______________________________

3.  _______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________
 Try out every scenario,
and evaluate:
●  Is it obvious what the user needs to do to
complete the scenario?

●  Does the flow feel clear and guided?

●  Does every scenario provide the least possible

steps?
 5
Inspect the Details
 Inspect every part of
the product to:
1.  Be sensually inviting
2.  Convey clear message
3.  Have strong call to action
4.  Be consistent
5.  Affords appropriate actions
6.  Have visible status
7.  Be quickly and easily accessible
8.  Prevent errors & guide recovery
9.  Provide guidance
1. Sensually inviting

●  Are the screens easy on the eye, buttons fit

nicely on the fingers?

●  Is the look and feel pleasing? Does the product

evoke the intended emotions?

●  Do the sensorial elements (visual, gestural, etc)

create harmony?

●  Does it have sufficient contrast that if involves

texts, it makes them easy to read?
2. Clear message

●  Is the message clear, easy and obvious to

understand?

●  Does it use familiar words relevant for the user?

●  Is it free from any distractions, e.g.: unnecessary

text and images?
3. Strong Call to Action

Call to Actions (CTA) bring users closer to the final

goal

●  Does it have a strong primary call to action?

●  Is the Call to Action clear and well-labeled?

●  Is the primary Call to Action easy to find and

located above the fold (visible without scrolling)?
4. Consistent

●  Is the way to interact consistent throughout the

product? (e.g.: the way to buy a shirt consistent to
the way to buy a skirt)

●  Is the use of language and terminology

consistent?

●  Is the use of design elements (pictures, videos,

buttons, links, icons) consistent?
5. Appropriate affordances

Affordance refers to users’ interpretation on what

action they can/cannot do with an object.

●  Is it obvious which areas are clickable and vice

versa? e.g.: link looks like a link, button looks like
a button.

●  Is it clear how to interact with the product?

e.g.: there’s a clue for users to scroll
6. Visible status

●  Is it clear where the user at any point in time?

(e.g.: highlighted menu item on a website,
signage throughout a venue)

●  Does it inform users what is going on through

appropriate feedback?
(e.g.: status to tell users if the page is loading, the
LED Is off when the product is turned off)
7. Quick & Easy Access

●  Does the page load quickly? Are the buttons

visible and reachable? Does the venue easy to
find?

●  Is the site’s content easy to read (appropriate

font size and color contrast)?
8. Prevent error and
guide recovery
●  Does the product prevent error from occurring
in the first place?

●  When there is an error, is the error message

clear ? e.g.: it indicates precisely what is the
problem and provides a solution to recover from
the error

●  Does it provide contextual help? e.g.: help

tooltips that explains a field in an online form.
9. Provide guidance

●  Is every mandatory field clearly marked?

●  Is every field labeled clearly, free from

ambiguity?

●  Does it provide clues for the expected input

values?

●  Does it validate for information accuracy before

user can move to the next step?
 THE END

We are continuously improving this toolkit.

If you have any input or would like be a

contributor, please let us know at:
lab@somiacx.com

Brought to you by Somia Customer Experience

http://somiacx.com

This work is licensed under a 

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.
Somia Customer Experience
www.somiacx.com