# What Is a UX Audit? Definition and Process | Gr8r > A UX audit is an expert review of a product's main flows that finds usability problems, ranks them by severity and recommends fixes. How it works and costs. Source: https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/ux-audit Glossary 路 Product # UX audit (Usability audit) A UX audit is a structured expert review of a website or app's main flows. It finds usability problems, ranks them by severity and recommends a specific fix for each, drawing on established heuristics and guidelines rather than new research with users. It ends with a prioritised report and a walkthrough. [Get a UX audit](https://gr8rstudio.com/services/ux-audit)[All terms](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary) In one line A UX audit is an expert review of a product's main flows that ends with ranked problems and a fix for each. Related - [Heuristic evaluation](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/heuristic-evaluation) - [Usability testing](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/usability-testing) - [Accessibility audit](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/accessibility-audit) - $115M+ Client Funding - [ 1.8K+ GitHub Stars ](https://github.com/gr8rstudio/gr8r-studio) - 50+ Projects Shipped AI helps us move faster. Our team makes the decisions and stands behind the work. - hyperAI On this page 1. [Why a UX audit matters](#s-0) 2. [How a UX audit works, step by step](#s-1) 3. [What you get at the end of a UX audit](#s-2) 4. [UX audit vs usability testing](#s-3) 5. [Common UX audit mistakes](#s-4) 6. [How Gr8r runs UX audits](#s-5) ## Why a UX audit matters Teams stop seeing their own product. You know what the onboarding checklist is meant to do, so you read the screen as intended, not as it is. Nielsen Norman Group compares it to proofreading your own writing: your mind sees what you meant to put on the page. Analytics can show you that trial users stall on the plan selection step. It rarely tells you why. An audit puts a fresh reviewer in front of that step. They bring a structured way of spotting and naming what's wrong. An audit is also the cheapest of the options on the table. It needs no recruiting, no lab and no new build, only access to the product and a clear list of the flows that matter. That makes it a sensible first step before a redesign is commissioned, because it tells you whether a redesign is needed at all or whether a dozen targeted fixes would do. ## How a UX audit works, step by step First, agree the scope: which flows, which users, which devices. "Signup to first invoice sent, on mobile and desktop" is a scope, while "the whole app" usually isn't. Then the reviewer walks each flow as a user would, checking every screen against usability heuristics and known patterns. Support tickets and analytics help where they exist. Each issue is logged with a screenshot, where it happens and why it's a problem. Then it gets a severity rating. Nielsen's classic scale runs from cosmetic to usability catastrophe. It weighs how often a problem occurs, how hard it is to get past and whether it keeps coming back. The output is a prioritised list of findings with a recommendation for each, followed by a walkthrough with the team. A good report tells you what to fix first. A list of everything that's wrong is much less useful. The heuristics most reviewers use are Jakob Nielsen's ten. A [heuristic evaluation](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/heuristic-evaluation) is the narrower method of checking an interface against those rules. A UX audit usually includes one, and adds data, known patterns and a fix plan. ## What you get at the end of a UX audit The report is the product. Whoever runs the audit, you should end up holding the same things: - **The agreed scope.** The flows, users and devices that were reviewed, written down. - **Findings with evidence.** Each problem with a screenshot and the screen it happens on. - **A severity rating.** So a typo does not sit next to a broken checkout with the same weight. - **A recommended fix.** Specific enough for a designer or engineer to act on. - **A walkthrough.** Time with the reviewer, so your team can question the findings and decide what to do first. A good report also says what is working. Nielsen Norman Group's guidance on expert reviews asks for strengths as well as problems, for a practical reason: if nobody writes down what works, the next redesign removes it by accident. Some audits also compare your flows with common patterns in the same category, such as how most checkouts handle delivery options. That is useful context. It is not a score, and it should not be presented as one. Our [UX audit report template](https://gr8rstudio.com/blog/ux-audit-report-template) shows each page of a report and can be downloaded. For the longer explanation, read [what a UX audit is and what you get at the end](https://gr8rstudio.com/blog/what-is-a-ux-audit). ## UX audit vs usability testing A UX audit is an inspection: an expert reviews the product. Usability testing is observation: you watch real users try to complete tasks. They find different problems, so they work best together. An audit is quick at catching inconsistencies and breaches of well-known practice, the sort of thing a five-person study might never surface. Testing catches what an expert can't predict, often because your users know things or need things the reviewer doesn't. A sensible order is audit first, fix the obvious problems, then test so participants aren't tripping over them. ## Common UX audit mistakes The most common one is a 200-row spreadsheet with no priorities. Nobody acts on it. Close behind is a scope so wide the reviewer skims every flow instead of going deep on the ones that make money. Treating every heuristic breach as a bug is another trap. A hamburger menu hides options, but on a small screen it may still be the right trade-off. Findings need context, and recommendations need to fit your constraints, or the report becomes an argument for a redesign nobody asked for. ## How Gr8r runs UX audits We agree the flows that matter most with you, then review them screen by screen on the devices your users actually use. Each finding comes with a screenshot, a severity rating and a specific recommendation. We finish with a walkthrough so your team can question the findings and decide what to fix first. Where a question can only be settled by watching users, we say so rather than guess. Our [UX audit service](https://gr8rstudio.com/services/ux-audit) follows these steps. The audit is free for the first 5 companies that ask: [request the free UX audit](https://gr8rstudio.com/free-audit). From our own audits We audit our own products the way we audit a client's, and publish the results. The [Veluno UX audit](https://gr8rstudio.com/work/veluno-ux-audit) covered sign-in, the overview, suppliers, reviews, renewals and the supplier portal at three screen widths, by mouse and by keyboard. It found 13 issues. The first fix was counts that disagree between screens. The [Cendara UX audit](https://gr8rstudio.com/work/cendara-ux-audit) found 12\. The first fix there was data tables that push the whole page sideways on tablets. Built by Gr8r for its own portfolio. Not client work. ## Go deeper on UX audit - [ What Is a UX Audit, and What Do You Get at the End? What is a UX audit? A plain definition, how a website audit works, and what you should hold at the end: a report, ranked findings and a fix plan. ](https://gr8rstudio.com/blog/what-is-a-ux-audit) - [ How to Do a Website UX Audit, Screen by Screen How to do a UX audit screen by screen: what to check on the home page, pricing, sign up, onboarding, checkout and settings, with a checklist for each. ](https://gr8rstudio.com/blog/how-to-do-a-website-ux-audit) - [ The UX Audit Report Template: What Each Page Should Hold A free UX audit report template you can copy today: the sections, a 0 to 4 severity scale, a findings table and what each page of the report should hold. ](https://gr8rstudio.com/blog/ux-audit-report-template) Reviewed by [Tanjim Islam](https://gr8rstudio.com/about/tanjim-islam), Founder & CEO 路 Updated 12 November 2026 Sources - [Nielsen Norman Group: UX Expert Reviews](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-expert-reviews/) - [Nielsen Norman Group: Severity Ratings for Usability Problems](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-rate-the-severity-of-usability-problems/) - [Baymard Institute: What Is a UX Audit?](https://baymard.com/blog/ux-audit) FAQ ## UX audit questions answered Ask anything else - What is included in a UX audit? Usually a review of agreed flows, a list of usability problems with screenshots, a severity rating for each and a recommended fix. Many audits also include a walkthrough session so the team can ask questions. - How long does a UX audit take? It depends on scope. A review of one or two flows is a much smaller job than a whole product with several user types and devices. Be wary of a firm timeline from anyone who hasn't yet agreed which flows are in scope. - How much does a UX audit cost? Gr8r's UX audit is free for the first 5 companies that ask. You can request it on the [free audit page](https://gr8rstudio.com/free-audit). Elsewhere, the price depends on how many flows and devices are in scope and who does the review, so ask for the scope in writing before you compare quotes. - Is a UX audit the same as a heuristic evaluation? Not quite. A heuristic evaluation checks a design against a fixed set of usability heuristics, and it's often one part of a UX audit. An audit usually goes wider, drawing on other guidelines, the reviewer's experience and any data you have. - When should you get a UX audit? Good moments are before a redesign, when activation or conversion stalls, or after months of shipping features quickly. Nielsen Norman Group also suggests stepping back for an expert review every few years even without a redesign. - Who should do a UX audit? Someone with real experience of watching users, and ideally someone who didn't design the product. An outsider has no attachment to past decisions and spots problems the team has stopped noticing. ## Terms related to UX audit - [ 01 Heuristic evaluationHeuristic evaluation is a usability inspection method in which a small group of evaluators independently judge an interface against established guidelines, usually Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics. It finds likely design problems quickly and without testing with users, and works on live products and on designs that are not built yet. Explore ](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/heuristic-evaluation) - [ 02 Usability testingUsability testing is a research method where a facilitator asks representative users to complete realistic tasks with a product. Observing what they do and say shows where the design confuses or blocks them. Explore ](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/usability-testing) - [ 03 Accessibility auditAn accessibility audit is a structured evaluation of a website or app against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It combines automated scans, manual checks by a person and testing with assistive technology to find the barriers disabled people meet, and it maps each failure to the WCAG success criterion it breaks. Explore ](https://gr8rstudio.com/glossary/accessibility-audit) ## Book a call with our CEO. Pick a time that suits you. 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