A structured examination of what's working, what isn't, and where to focus first.

A UX audit is a systematic evaluation of a product's user experience, designed to identify friction points, usability failures, and gaps between user expectations and actual product behavior. The output is a prioritised list of problems with enough evidence and context for the product team to act on them — not just a catalogue of what's wrong, but a guide for what to fix first and why.

Unlike a Heuristic Evaluation — which evaluates against established design principles — a UX audit typically draws on multiple inputs: expert review, analytics, session recordings, support ticket analysis, and sometimes direct user research. It's broader in scope and more directly tied to business metrics.

A heuristic evaluation is one tool inside a UX audit. The audit is the process; the heuristic evaluation is one method within it.

A heuristic evaluation can be completed in a few hours by one expert against a fixed set of principles. A full UX audit takes longer, involves multiple data sources, and produces findings calibrated against the product's specific goals and user population.

The distinction matters because audit findings are easier to prioritise and defend to stakeholders. "Users abandon at step 3 of checkout — confirmed by analytics, session recordings, and expert review" is a more actionable brief than "this violates heuristic 4." The evidence base changes how findings get prioritised and resourced.

A thorough UX audit evaluates across several dimensions:

• Core task completion: Can users accomplish the jobs the product exists to support? Where do they fail or abandon?
• Navigation and information architecture: Can users find what they need? Do labels and structure match their mental model? (Card Sorting data is often used here)
• [Visual Hierarchy](/glossary/visual-hierarchy) and clarity: Is each page communicating clearly? Is the most important action visually prominent?
• Error handling and recovery: When things go wrong, does the product help users understand what happened and what to do next?
• Accessibility: Does the product meet WCAG 2.1 AA baseline requirements?
• Consistency: Are patterns, labels, and behaviors consistent across the product, or have different teams built the same thing differently?

A good audit delivers three things: a prioritised findings list, severity ratings for each issue, and specific recommendations with enough detail to brief a designer or product manager.

The severity rating is the most useful output. It lets findings be weighed against each other and sorted into: fix this sprint, address next quarter, backlog for later. Without it, an audit produces a flat list of problems that's overwhelming rather than actionable.

Severity is typically rated on a 1-3 or 1-5 scale based on the combination of how frequently an issue occurs and how badly it disrupts the user when it does.

A UX audit is highest-value when:

• You're preparing for a major product release and want to catch UX problems before they ship
• Churn analysis or support data shows recurring usability problems but it's not clear where they're concentrated
• The product has grown without structured UX investment and there's no current-state baseline
• You're onboarding a new design team and need to understand the landscape before making changes

Audit findings also sharpen the problem statement going into a Design Sprint — teams that know exactly what's broken get to Friday's test day with much more focused questions. If your product is overdue for one, UX Audit covers the full audit process from evaluation through prioritised recommendations.