How to do a website UX audit (step by step)

Every click, swipe, or scroll a user makes on your website is an opportunity. You can either deepen engagement or lose their attention.

Unfortunately, many websites end up doing the latter. This is often because they haven't been rigorously evaluated from a user’s perspective.

This is where a UX audit (user experience audit) comes in to save the day.

A UX audit is a structured way of examining your website to understand how real users interact with it. It uncovers hidden user pain points, highlights friction in user flows, and identifies areas where design elements may be confusing or inconsistent.

When implemented properly, a UX audit can dramatically improve user satisfaction, enhance conversion rates, and help your site better achieve its business objectives.

If you're here, it's probably because you've already decided you need a UX audit. You've made the hardest (but most important) step already. So we won't keep you waiting too long...

In this guide, we’ll walk through the UX audit process step by step. You’ll learn how to prepare for an audit, gather and analyze data, run usability testing, identify pain points, and convert insights into actionable UX improvements.

By following this process, you’ll be ready to run a thorough UX audit.

UX: The background

History buff? Computer nerd? This section is for you.

The concept of examining usability and experience isn’t new. Jakob Nielsen, a pioneer in web usability, developed the famous usability heuristics, which are a set of principles that provide a foundation for evaluating websites and digital products.

The 10 usability heuristics were developed as general principles for designing usable interfaces. They’re not strict rules but guidelines to evaluate a website or product’s user experience. Here’s a brief overview:

1. Visibility of system status: The system should always keep users informed about what’s going on, through feedback or status indicators (e.g., loading spinners, progress bars).

2. Match between system and the real world: Use language and concepts familiar to the user, not technical jargon. Interface should follow real-world conventions.

3. User control and freedom: Users should easily undo or redo actions and navigate freely without fear of making irreversible mistakes.

4. Consistency and standards: Interfaces should follow platform conventions and maintain consistent terminology, design patterns, and behaviors across the site.

5. Error prevention: Design should prevent errors before they occur, such as disabling invalid options or confirming destructive actions.

6. Recognition rather than recall: Make objects, actions, and options visible so users don’t have to remember information from one part of the system to another.

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use: Support both novice and experienced users by offering shortcuts, accelerators, and customizable workflows.

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design: Keep the interface simple and relevant. Avoid unnecessary elements that distract or overwhelm users.

9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Error messages should clearly explain the problem and provide actionable solutions.

10. Help and documentation: Even with good design, users sometimes need guidance. Provide accessible help, FAQs, or searchable documentation.

The UX audit, step by step

Step 1: Understand what a website UX audit is and why it's important

The first step is knowing what a UX audit is...

A UX audit, also called a user experience audit, is a detailed evaluation of a website to understand how easy, intuitive, and effective it is for visitors. Unlike a design audit, which focuses primarily on visual consistency and aesthetics, a UX audit looks at how the user interface, design elements, and content support, or hinder, the user journeys.

The purpose of a UX audit is not simply to make your site look better; it’s to ensure that every element of your website contributes to a smooth, intuitive, and goal-oriented user experience. By doing so, you can identify pain points that cause visitors to abandon tasks, spot areas where behavior indicates confusion, and uncover A/B testing ideas to up your conversion rates.

What's included in a UX audit?

A thorough UX review typically looks at several areas:

1. Navigation and user flows: How easily can users move from one page to another? Are the user flows logical and intuitive?

2. Content clarity: Is information presented clearly? Are instructions and CTAs obvious?

3. Visual design and interface elements: Are buttons, forms, and other interactive elements consistent and accessible?

4. Functionality and technical performance: Do forms, search, and other features work correctly across devices?

For example, a common pain point might be an inconsistent button style that confuses users about which action to take, or a multi-step checkout process that lacks clear progress indicators. Identifying these issues is central to improving the overall user experience.

Why is a UX site audit important?

Conducting a website UX audit has several benefits:

• Improved conversion rates: By simplifying user flows and removing friction, more visitors complete desired actions, whether that’s signing up, making a purchase, or contacting your team.

• Enhanced customer satisfaction: Fixing pain points and aligning the site with user needs increases engagement and loyalty.

• Data-driven decisions: Using analytics data and user research, you can prioritize changes that deliver the highest impact.

• Informs future improvements: A well-executed audit informs new features, redesigns, or iterative enhancements, ensuring your product evolves alongside user expectations.

Theoretical example: You run an ecommerce website and your analytics have showed you that users repeatedly abandon the checkout process at the shipping options step. A website UX audit might show you...

• The shipping options page is overloaded with too many choices (e.g., five different courier services with confusing names like "Express Saver Standard" vs. "Standard Saver Express"). Users can’t easily understand the differences, so they hesitate and drop off.

• The extra costs for shipping only appear very late in the process, making customers feel “tricked” after they’ve already invested time adding products to cart.

• On mobile, the radio buttons for selecting shipping are tiny and too close together, so users mis-tap, get frustrated, and quit.

• Or, the audit finds that the “Continue” button is below the fold, meaning customers don’t even see how to move forward without scrolling.

The analytics told you where the problem was, but the website UX audit explains why it's happening, and shows you how to fix it.

Step 1: Takeaways

• A website UX audit is about understanding user behavior, not just making aesthetic changes.

• It evaluates the effectiveness of your user interface, design elements, and content.

• The goal is to uncover pain points, improve user satisfaction, and optimize conversion rates.

• Conducting an audit provides a baseline for continuous UX improvements and supports business goals.

Step 2: Gather data and set goals

Before diving into screens, checklists, or usability heuristics, a thorough UX audit starts with data. Numbers and insights help you understand how people actually use your product, where they struggle, and which parts of your site may be holding them back. Without this foundation, you’re just guessing, and we all know that's a waste of time.

Collecting quantitive data

The first layer of a website UX audit comes from analytics data. Tools like Google Analytics or Microsoft Clarity show you measurable patterns of user behavior, such as:

• Traffic flow: Where users enter, which pages they visit, and where they exit.

• Conversion rates: How many people move from one step to the next (e.g., product page → checkout → payment).

• Bounce rates & session times: Are people leaving too quickly? Do they spend long stretches stuck on a page without progressing?

• Device breakdowns: Are issues worse on mobile vs desktop?

This data can reveal hidden weaknesses. For example, you might see that mobile users consistently abandon at the checkout process, while desktop users convert normally. That’s a big red flag that your mobile experience needs attention.

Collecting qualitative data

Whilst quantitive data is all about numbers, qualitative data is words. This is where user feedback and research methods come in. A successful website UX audit combines both:

• Surveys and feedback forms: Ask real users about their pain points in their own words.

• Support tickets and live chat logs: What questions or complaints come up repeatedly?

• User testing sessions: Watch someone try to use your product. Their struggles will highlight issues analytics alone can’t expose.

Together, quantitative and qualitative data give you a holistic picture of user needs and pain points.

Setting goals for your website user experience audit

Once you’ve gathered data, the next step is to tie your findings to business goals and specific needs of your product. Without this, you risk generating a long list of “nice to have” improvements that don’t actually drive results.

Ask yourself:

• What are we trying to improve, conversion rates, satisfaction, or both?

• Which user flows are most critical to our business goals (e.g., sign-up, checkout, booking)?

• Are there new features coming that require a smoother user interface?

For example, if your analytics show that only 1% of visitors complete a checkout, but your target conversion rate is 3%, that’s a measurable goal to work toward. Similarly, if user surveys reveal frustration with account creation, then improving the overall user experience of sign-up becomes a defined objective.

Why is this step important?

Jumping straight into screens and heuristics without a clear goal can lead to wasted effort. By first gathering analytics data and setting measurable goals, you ensure your website UX audit is laser-focused on solving specific needs that matter to both your users and your business.

Step 2: Takeaways

• Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to uncover patterns in traffic, conversion rates, and user behavior.

• Combine quantitative data (numbers) with qualitative insights (feedback, surveys, user testing) for a complete picture.

• Align your UX audit with specific business goals and website visitor needs to avoid unfocused improvements.

• Define clear, measurable targets (e.g., “increase checkout completion from 1% to 3%”) to guide the audit process.

Step 3: The Heuristic evaluation

When you spend time working on a website, whether as a UX designer, marketer, or business owner, it’s almost impossible to see it with fresh eyes. You know where to click, how to navigate, and how to get around quirks in the interface. Your visitors don’t.

That’s where a heuristic evaluation comes in. This process uses established usability principles, most commonly Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics (cheat sheet above), to help you step back and evaluate your site from the perspective of someone using it it for the first time. These heuristics act as a guiding framework that reveals problems you may have become blind to.

Instead of asking “Do I know how to use this?”, a heuristic evaluation asks “Would a new visitor, with no prior knowledge, understand this?” It's a small shift that makes a huge difference.

Why Heuristic evaluation matters in a website UX audit

Analytics can tell you what is happening, such as shoppers dropping off at a specific step in the checkout process, but they don’t always reveal why. Heuristic evaluations help explain the “why” by identifying flaws in usability, design elements, and flows. For example:

• Is your visual design cluttered?

• Is your UI inconsistent?

• Are error messages confusing instead of helpful?

These findings not only guide usability testing later on but also provide a quick way to uncover pain points before investing in more resource-heavy methods.

Step 3: Takeaways

• Use Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics as a framework to evaluate your website’s usability.

• Heuristic evaluation helps uncover the “why” behind pain points, complementing analytics data.

• Focus on usability, consistency, and error handling to improve the overall user experience.

• Real-world issues often stem from small but critical design flaws that only surface during heuristic evaluation.

Step 4: Analyze behaviour and address pain points

Instead of just collecting data (Step 2), this step is about digging into that data and observing actual user interactions to understand friction points and uncover user pain. You’re moving from “what is happening?” to “why is it happening?”.

Focus areas for user behavior analysis

1. User flows: Track how users move through key tasks, like signing up, browsing products, or completing checkout. Look for drop-offs, loops, or dead-ends.

2. Task success and friction points: Identify steps where users hesitate, backtrack, or fail to complete actions. These indicate pain points that need fixing.

3. Behavior segmentation: Compare behavior across devices, traffic sources, and user types within your target audience to see if issues affect some more than others.

4. Patterns vs outliers: Focus on recurring issues affecting many users, not one-off mistakes.

Step 4: Takeaways

• Step 4 focuses on analysis and interpretation, not just data collection.

• Identify user flows, friction points, and recurring pain points to inform UX improvements.

• Combine observations from session recordings, heatmaps, and feedback for a full picture.

• Use these insights to prioritize high-impact changes that improve overall user experience and conversion rates.

Step 5: Conduct usability testing

After identifying patterns and pain points in Step 4, the next step is to validate your findings with real users. Usability testing allows you to see whether the issues you detected actually impact users and to uncover new problems that analytics or heuristics may have missed.

How to conduct usability testing

• Select representative users: Use your user personas to ensure participants match your audience.

• Define tasks: Focus on key user flows, like signing up, completing a checkout, or navigating your main product pages.

• Observe and record: Watch how users interact with the interface. Take note of hesitation, errors, or confusion.

• Collect feedback: Ask users to think aloud or complete post-test surveys to capture user satisfaction and pain points.

Step 5: Takeaways

• Usability testing validates insights from analytics and heuristics.

• Testing with real users reveals issues that may not appear in data alone.

• Focus on key user flows and critical tasks.

Step 6: Creating the website UX audit report

Once testing is complete, compile all observations into a comprehensive UX audit report. This report acts as the foundation for any future improvements.

What to include

• Key issues: From heuristic evaluation, analytics, and usability testing.

• Evidence: Screenshots, session recordings, and analytics data to support findings.

• Impact analysis: How each issue affects user experience, conversion rates, or business goals.

• Prioritized recommendations: Which issues to fix first for the greatest impact.

Step 6: Takeaways

• Include all validated issues from previous steps.

• Provide clear evidence and explain the impact on users and business goals.

• Prioritize issues for action.

• A well-structured report ensures stakeholders understand and support UX improvements.

Step 7: Recommendations and action plan

With your report complete, it’s time to propose specific, actionable improvements.

How to approach recommendations

• Design fixes: Adjust UI elements, visual design, or layout to remove friction.

• Flow optimizations: Simplify navigation or checkout processes to reduce drop-offs.

• New features: Introduce elements that meet user needs uncovered during research.

• Testing plan: Suggest further validation if needed, particularly for significant changes.

Step 7: Takeaways

• Translate audit insights into concrete design changes.

• Focus on fixes that directly address pain points and improve conversion rates.

• Include a roadmap with priorities and timelines.

• Recommendations should be actionable and measurable.

Step 8: Monitor, iterate, measure

A successful UX audit doesn’t end with recommendations. Continuous monitoring ensures that changes have the intended impact and helps you iterate for ongoing improvement.

How to monitor and iterate

• Track metrics: Conversion rates, task completion, bounce rates, and user satisfaction.

• Collect ongoing feedback: Surveys, support tickets, or periodic usability tests.

• Iterate: Make incremental adjustments based on performance data and user feedback.

• Repeat audits periodically: UX evolves as users and business goals change, so audits should be a recurring process.

Step 8: Takeaways

• UX auditing is an ongoing process, not a one-time task.

• Measure success with metrics and user feedback.

• Iterate on design changes to continuously improve user experience and conversion rates.

• Periodically revisit the UX audit to ensure your site continues to meet user needs and business goals.

Recapping the website UX audit

A thorough website UX audit is a structured process that transforms your understanding of user behavior into actionable improvements.

By following the eight steps outlined in this guide, you can ensure your site not only meets business goals but also delivers a seamless, enjoyable experience for anyone who uses your site.

1. Understand what a UX audit is: Know why auditing your site matters and what to expect from the process.

2. Gather data & set goals: Collect analytics and user feedback to establish a baseline and define measurable objectives.

3. Conduct a Heuristic evaluation: Apply usability heuristics to see your site with fresh eyes and identify common friction points.

4. Analyze patterns and identify pain points: Interpret behavior to uncover recurring issues and prioritize critical areas for improvement.

5. Conduct usability testing: Validate your findings with real website visitors to confirm problems and reveal hidden pain points.

6. Compile findings into a UX audit report: Summarize insights, evidence, and recommendations in a clear, actionable document.

7. Recommend UX improvements and action plan: Propose targeted changes to design, flows, and features that address pain points and support business goals.

8. Monitor, iterate, and measure success: Track metrics post-implementation, collect feedback, and continuously refine the user experience.

A successful UX audit doesn’t just fix isolated issues, it creates a roadmap for ongoing optimization. By combining analytics, user research, heuristic evaluation, and testing, you can make informed decisions that improve conversion rates, overall user satisfaction, and long-term engagement.

Remember, UX auditing is a continuous cycle: the more you observe, analyze, and iterate, the closer your website will come to delivering a truly user-centric experience.

Bonus tools, software, platforms and systems

• Capian: Capture findings as you browse, then share a link to your review. Perfect for heuristic evaluations, UX audits, expert reviews, and many other audit types.

• UserReport: User engagement tools, that help build better product. UserReport is based on two simple widgets, a survey and a feedback widget.

• Kissmetrics: Simple analytics that track human behavior to increase revenue. Find bottle necks, reduce churn, improve profit.

• UserTesting: UserZoom empowers anyone to create digital experiences that delight customers and drive business growth.