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Summary – Unidentified friction points, complex flows and inconsistent experiences inflate bounce rates and hamper conversions. This 12-step operational methodology aligns business goals and KPIs, maps critical journeys, performs quantitative and heuristic audits, conducts user testing, benchmarks and prioritizes with RICE or MoSCoW—delivering actionable outputs (reports, mockups, prioritized backlog, KPI dashboard).
Solution: drive improvements in data-driven cycles to maximize ROI and align product, business and tech.
Conducting a UX/UI audit goes beyond reviewing screens: it’s a structured, metrics-driven process that enables an accurate diagnosis, identifies friction points, and proposes actions prioritized according to their business impact. This twelve-step approach covers objective framing, quantitative and qualitative analysis, heuristic evaluation, user testing, and ROI-focused prioritization.
Each phase produces actionable deliverables—detailed reports, mockups, prioritized backlog—to align product, business, and technical teams. The goal is to transform the digital experience into a lever for measurable conversion, retention, and satisfaction.
Preparation and Business Framing
Establishing the business framework is essential to avoid descriptive, non-actionable audits. This step defines the objectives, key performance indicators (KPIs), and priority segments to analyze.
Objective and KPI Framing
The audit begins by aligning business and IT expectations. We formalize the primary objectives—such as increasing the conversion rate of a sign-up funnel, reducing bounce rates, or improving customer satisfaction. These objectives are translated into measurable KPIs, like task completion time, click-through rate, or CSAT score.
A precise definition of these indicators guides data collection and ensures that each recommendation can be tied to a performance metric. For example, in a B2B context, the number of scheduled demos may become a central KPI. This framing prevents effort dispersion and lays the groundwork for prioritization.
The result of this sub-step is a framing document listing the KPIs, their calculation methods, and expected thresholds. It serves as a reference throughout the project to validate the impact of proposed improvements, ensuring data-driven, informed decisions.
Mapping Critical Journeys
This involves identifying the user flows that generate the most value or have high abandonment rates. This mapping targets purchase journeys, onboarding processes, or key business interactions. It is built using co-design workshops and analytics analysis.
The journeys are visualized as diagrams illustrating steps, friction points, and transitions. This representation reveals bottlenecks and redundant steps. It facilitates cross-functional discussions among IT, marketing, and business teams to validate intervention priorities.
This mapping gives rise to a functional blueprint that serves as a reference for evaluating the impact of future changes. It also guides the focus of user tests by targeting the most critical journeys for your business.
Constraints and User Segments
This section lists technical limitations (frameworks, browser compatibility, modular architecture), regulatory requirements (GDPR, accessibility), and business constraints. Understanding these constraints enables realistic, feasible recommendations.
Simultaneously, user segments are defined based on existing personas, customer feedback, and support tickets. We distinguish novice users, regular users, tech-savvy individuals, and those with specific accessibility or performance needs.
For example, a Swiss medical company segmented its end users into hospital practitioners and IT administrators. This distinction revealed that the IT administrators’ onboarding journey suffered from overly long configuration times, leading to initial confusion and frequent support tickets. This insight validated the prioritization of a quick win: automated setup.
Edana: strategic digital partner in Switzerland
We support companies and organizations in their digital transformation
Quantitative Audit and UX/UI Inventory
Analyzing existing data and inventorying interfaces provides a solid factual foundation. Analytics, screen inventories, and web performance measurements help objectify friction points.
Collecting Analytical Data
We connect to tools like GA4, Amplitude, or Matomo to extract conversion funnels, error rates, and critical events. This phase highlights drop-off points and underperforming screens.
Data granularity—sessions, segments, acquisition channels—helps determine whether issues are global or specific to a segment. For example, a faulty payment funnel may affect mobile users only.
Results are presented through clear dashboards tailored to diverse audiences. These quantified insights frame the audit and serve as a basis for measuring post-implementation improvements.
Screen and Component Inventory
An exhaustive list of screens, modules, and UI components is compiled to evaluate visual consistency, modularity, and design system adoption. We identify non-compliant variants and unnecessary duplicates.
This phase can be automated with scripts that extract CSS tags, classes, and ARIA attributes from the source code or the DOM. Deviations from internal standards are then identified.
The deliverable is an inventory grid listing each element’s usage frequency, status (standard/custom), and visual discrepancies to address for improved consistency.
Core Web Vitals and Performance
Loading speed indicators—LCP, FID, CLS—are measured using Lighthouse or performance testing tools.
An in-depth analysis identifies blocking resources, image sizes, and third-party scripts slowing down the page. Recommendations range from media compression to optimizing asynchronous requests.
For example, a Swiss e-commerce player saw an LCP exceeding four seconds on its homepage. The audit led to optimizing lazy-loading and extracting critical CSS, reducing LCP to 2.3 seconds and improving click-through rate by 8%.
Heuristic Analysis, Accessibility, and Microcopy
The heuristic audit and accessibility evaluation uncover usability best practice violations. Microcopy completes the approach by ensuring clarity and perceived value at every step.
Heuristic Audit According to Nielsen
The evaluation is based on Nielsen’s ten principles: visibility of system status, match between system and the real world, user control and freedom, consistency and standards, error prevention, recognition rather than recall, flexibility and efficiency of use, aesthetic and minimalist design, help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors, and help and documentation.
Each violation is documented with screenshots and an explanation of its impact on the experience. This section includes severity ratings according to Nielsen’s scale to prioritize fixes.
The deliverable is a detailed report listing each heuristic, the severity score, and visual examples. It serves as the basis for planning quick wins and the improvement backlog.
WCAG/RGAA Accessibility
We verify WCAG 2.1 criteria and, where applicable, RGAA for public sector markets.
Each non-conformity is annotated with a criticality level (A, AA, AAA). Corrective solutions propose text alternatives, color adjustments, and improvements to interactive elements.
A compliance grid is delivered, listing the verified criteria, the status of each page, and priority recommendations. It will facilitate tracking and integration into your development sprints.
Content Assessment and Microcopy
The analysis of button text, form labels, and error messages focuses on clarity, added value, and reassurance. We identify overly technical phrases, ambiguous labels, and fields that lack context.
Effective microcopy guides the user, prevents errors, and builds trust. Recommendations include suggested rewordings to optimize conversions and satisfaction.
For example, during an audit of a Swiss banking platform, we revised the primary button label from “Submit” to “Validate and send your request.” This microcopy clarified the action and reduced form abandonment by 12%.
User Testing, Benchmarking, and Prioritization
User testing provides on-the-ground validation, while benchmarking inspires industry best practices. RICE or MoSCoW prioritization organizes actions based on impact, confidence, and effort.
Targeted User Tests
Representative scenarios are defined to test critical journeys. Participants from key segments complete tasks while we measure completion time, error rate, and satisfaction levels.
Qualitative observations (real-time comments, facial expressions) enrich the metrics. Gaps between expectations and actual behavior reveal optimization opportunities.
The outcome is a document comprising insights, recordings, and specific UX recommendations. These elements feed the backlog and guide A/B testing hypotheses.
Heatmaps and In-App Surveys
Click and scroll heatmaps reveal areas of interest and cold spots. Replays record sessions to recreate journeys. Contextual in-app surveys capture user feedback in the moment.
This mixed quantitative-qualitative approach uncovers unexpected behaviors, such as clicks on non-interactive elements or reading difficulties. The insights guide quick adjustments.
The deliverable combines heatmap screenshots, survey verbatim, and interaction statistics. It enables targeting quick wins and establishing a continuous improvement roadmap.
Functional Benchmark
Studying industry best practices positions your product relative to leaders. We analyze key features, innovative flows, and visual standards. This research sheds light on trends and user expectations.
The benchmark compares your application to three major competitors and two inspiring references outside your sector. It identifies functional, ergonomic, and visual gaps.
The summary report highlights alignment priorities and possible innovations. It informs impact-driven prioritization and strengthens the credibility of recommendations.
Drive Your UX/UI Improvement by ROI
The twelve-step UX/UI audit provides a set of structured deliverables: an audit report, quick-win list, prioritized backlog, Figma mockups, an accessibility grid, and a KPI dashboard. Each recommendation is linked to a testable hypothesis and measurable success criteria.
Management is conducted in cycles: implement, measure, iterate. This loop ensures risk reduction and continuous experience optimization. Decisions become data-driven, and product-business-technology alignment is mapped into a clear ROI roadmap.
Our experts are by your side to adapt this method to your context, whether it’s a new product, a redesign, or a live application. Together, let’s turn your user insights into sustainable growth drivers.
