Human-Centered Design Examples for Better User Experience

UX research is a complex process. To get the most of it, the process has to be organized. Even if your research consists of just a few interviews, you need a plan to make it effective and focused and not to end up with vague conversations.

With a good research plan, all the team will be on the same page, the deadlines will be met, and the research report will be relevant to the objectives.

As a design agency, we do UX research for each project we work on. One thing we can say for sure is that there is no universal template for UX research. Each project needs an individual approach. Yet there are some general steps that help us organize the research and build a structure around it.

So, how to create a UX research plan?

When you think of research strategy, a great guide is the DECIDE framework described in the book Interaction Design by Preece, Rogers, and Sharp. Here are the main steps:

• Determine the goals.
• Explore the questions.
• Choose the evaluation approach and methods.
• Identify the practical issues.
• Decide how to deal with ethical issues.
• Evaluate, analyze, interpret and present the data.

However, what works great for the user research strategy may not work as well when you have to make a concise UX research plan, short and clear. What is great in this framework is attention to ethical issues. On the other side, in an actual research plan, you might need to focus more on practical issues, such as budget, schedule, user database.

Here we suggest breaking the plan into more practical points.

Study existing situation

First of all, a researcher needs to understand the subject well, conduct interviews with team members, understand how the team is working. At this stage, they can also check the findings and results of previous researches, as well as related studies conducted with other products on the market.

This step may take more time for a product that is already on market, and less for the one that is yet to be developed. However, even in the latter case, there is always a certain background that is important to consider before the start.

When we start working on a product, one of the very first steps of the research is to ask questions to the team, before even talking to users. Here is a sneak peek to our working process with Acadeum, an educational SaaS for whom we did the UI/UX services. Each sticky note is a question that opens new possibilities to the product design.

Objective

Defining the user research objectives is crucial to understanding if the research was successful or not.

“Understanding our users better” is a vague objective. Of course, we should not underestimate the importance of empathizing with the customers. Most researchers are inherently directed at this “understanding” and it is awesome. Even if you just talked to your customers and got to know them better, the research can’t be considered “unsuccessful”. However, to get the most out of UX research, you need a more concrete objective.

For example, here is how we did UX research for Gridle, a CRM platform. While the research consisted of just a few in-depth interviews the result was the creation of a whole empathy map, a tangible version of “understanding”. It was short, just a few in-depth interviews, but the result was not just “better understanding”, it was an empathy map. It can also be a customer journey map or a detailed buyer persona profile. These are the things that can be used by other team members and won’t be lost when the researcher will stop working on the project.

The other extreme is too much “KPI-oriented” objective. “Increase revenue”, “improve conversion rates” sounds very concrete and measurable. However, UX research alone can’t fix these issues. It can suggest a certain hypothesis, but after that, the changes have to be made and the hypothesis has to be tested to finally reach those KPIs and improve metrics.

Here are some examples of user research objectives that are both concrete and feasible:

• What are the weak points in user flow?
• What are the main factors of users dissatisfaction?
• What are the a-ha moments of customer journey?

Estimated budget

At this stage, there is no need to define a detailed budget. What we are looking for here is to estimate the amount of money the client is ready to allocate for the research. Depending on the budget, the research methods and the number of users researched will vary. For example, an email survey can be run at a very low cost, while eye tracking requires costly technical resources and software.

At the final stages, the budget needs to be revisited. Only when the plan is done can we estimate the real budget.

Research methods

There are so many different UX research methods, that it is easy to get lost among them. Fundamental research may use all of them, but in most cases combining just a few is enough to get answers to the focus questions.

If you know little about all these UX research techniques, here is a quick guide on choosing the right one for your project:

As you can see, there is no way to avoid talking directly to users. Try integrating elements of an interview in every step of the research where you get access to the users. To learn more options and choose wisely, check out our list of 14 essential UX research methods.

If the product is at the very initial stages of development, generative research with deep interviews and competitors study works great. When the development is taking off, card sorting and contextual inquiry would help. When the product or prototype is ready and needs to be assessed, it is time for usability testing and email surveys.

In any case, a good practice is to combine quantitative and qualitative research, evaluative and generative research.

Choice of UX research techniques affects the tools. This might be even harder than picking the methods, but we’ve got a list of best UX research tools to help.

Participant profiles

Picking the right participants is a key to success. In many cases, you would not have a defined user persona before running UX research. Start with basic characteristics: age group, occupation, geography, and, what is important, the level of their engagement with the product (active users/prospect users/other options).

Some of these characteristics would not be relevant for your case, while others will be important. When you are done with a profile, define the minimum number of participants you need for each research method.

At this step, you should also think of ways to recruit the participants. There are many services and tools that help to find people for UX research sessions. It may be a great choice when you are just about to launch a product and not sure where to look for the participants. If you already have a user database, recruiting some of them would be more efficient than relying on the participants found by a third party.

Protocol

The research protocol contains specific guidelines for each selected research method. Interview questions have to be phrased correctly and correspond to the objectives.

A good practice is to write down the opening and closing of a user interview. At the beginning it is a short presentation of the product, an explanation of the study and its objectives, noting the amount of time it would take. At the end of the interview, there should be an expression of gratitude for the participation and asking if the interviewee has any questions.

Survey questions have to be planned in a similar way, as well as usability testing and even field research. “Just observe the users” isn’t a very effective approach. It is important to know what you are focusing on and what the questions are, even if there is no direct user interview planned.

Timeline

Once you have decided on research methods and the number of participants, a timeline should not be a hard task. The problem here might be that the time period that the client has planned for the research is shorter than what a researcher thinks is needed. Maybe hiring a research assistant can help save time. Another benefit of a clear and concise UX research plan is that it allows engaging other people to work, even if they are not familiar with the project in detail.

How long should UX research be? The timing depends on the scale of each project. Based on our experience, research takes on average from 1 to 5 weeks. When making an estimate, consider these factors:

• Time needed for the collection of data and time needed for the analysis
• The number of team members you can engage in user interviews and other research activities
• Time for the recruitment
• Time needed for the collection of data and time needed for the analysis
• The number of team members you can engage in user interviews and other research activities
• Time for the recruitment
• Human factor. People might be late, absent, or simply not available for an interview the next few days.

Make sure you plan with some spare time, so you won’t have to do the analysis in a rush: this is the key element of the UX research plan.

Ethics

Ethics is the last but not least part of the DECIDE framework. Yet it is overlooked way too often in user research plan. Should we give special attention to ethics when we just ask some people to interact with an app and tell their experience? Whatever your opinion is, the rule of thumb with ethics consideration is better to overdo than do not enough.

What are the most common points that you should consider?

• Receive the permission to record/film the process
• Receive the permission to use the information for research purposes (if it is needed for publication, it has to be stated clearly)
• Receive the permission to record/film the process
• Receive the permission to use the information for research purposes (if it is needed for publication, it has to be stated clearly)
• Inform the participants of all the details of the UX research process

Explaining to all the participants the background of the research, the methods used, and the purpose can be annoying and many researchers deem it unnecessary. Yet people have to know what they give and what they get.

The best way to save time on explanations and secure the ethics issues is to prepare a Research Participation Agreement (RPA). The document does not have to be long and there is no need to engage a lawyer in writing it. Follow this RPA template to make sure you inserted all the necessary info.

Budget (again)

Now that all parts of the plan are ready, it is time to check if the final budget fits into the initial one. There is no need to write a detailed budget into the UX research plan when it is just a part of the product design process, but often it is useful for researchers to know the sums to be able to estimate the costs in the future.

UX research plan graphic templates

Now that we are long gone into the process of crafting a UX research plan, and the process is far from any real template… Here are some templates that help you visually organize the plan (or at least the most important parts of it).

Miro UX research plan template. Goals&questions-oriented 

Airtable template. Timeline-oriented 

Milanote template. Brief 

An example of organizing all the user insights in Trello 

To sum up

This template is more of a how-to instruction. That is because UX research is a complex process that needs to be tailored to each project. Having some guides helps make the planning a bit easier.

If you need professional UX research for your project, contact us and we’ll present you an efficient and realistic plan.

Do you know that feeling of disappointment when your website users walked all the way through to the checkout and...didn’t convert? What did stop them from pushing a “purchase” button? Or, probably, you used to have stable and predictable sales, and then your growth slowed down, and your engagement level decreased. How can you find out the reason for this digital decay? A thorough UX audit helps you determine your product’s weaknesses and provide recommendations on addressing the issues and improving user experience.

This article will shed light on how to conduct a UX audit - when to do it, what outcome to expect, and what steps to take.

And to start with, let’s refresh what we know about the UX audit.

What is a UX audit?

First and foremost, a user experience or UX audit is a process aimed to uncover usability problems by research and analysis. The ultimate goal of the UX audit is to pinpoint critical gaps in the user journey that prevents customers from executing the target actions they’re supposed to take. 

Besides spotlighting the issues, the effective user experience audit provides businesses with recommendations on building a more seamless user journey that will positively impact customer engagement and increase conversions.

The UX audit is an irreplaceable tool for both mature companies and growing startups. If you feel that your product doesn’t deliver to customers the expected experience, don’t expect the problem will magically evaporate the other day. The more time you’re doing nothing to find out the issue, the bigger your lost profit amount is.

The user experience audit gives companies the possibility to unveil even minor usability issues, which can severely impact customer satisfaction.

A website UX review helps answer crucial questions like:

• What are the frictions users experience in their customer journey?
• How do these frictions influence customers’ behavior?
• Where is that point users leave a website?

The variety of methods used during the UX audit allows one to view problems from different angles and find their most likely reasons. 

How does a UX audit go?

As I’ve just mentioned, there are a bunch of different methods at UX audit’s disposal to identify the cause of your product’s underperformance. 

Here are some tools and metrics often used during the UX audit:

• traffic and conversion metrics
• sales and customer engagement data
• UX conventional standards
• business and product  
• usability heuristics
• mental modeling, wireframing, and prototyping

Being very close to usability testing, the UX audit has its specific direction. Whereas testing derives usability issues from user actions, the UX audit is guided by business goals, product requirements, and user experience standards.

Usability testing can be a part of an audit when there is no access to factual information and metrics. In this case, for fairness, it’s vital to combine gathered over a long time usability testing results with industry standards and business goals.

When should you conduct a UX audit?

Usually, marketing experts advise conducting the UX audit when a website or an application has been live for a while. As the primary purpose of the UI/UX audit is to find out why users don’t convert and where the weak point from the design perspective is, there should have already been some data to walk back and conduct the retrospective analysis. The data-driven analysis will help reveal gaps in a user flow and eliminate bottlenecks your users encounter on their customer journey. 

Also, it’s worth doing the design audit when you plan to implement new functionality and understand if customers face any problems while navigating through your website or app. However, a user experience audit is beneficial not only for existing products. It may be a good move to validate your design idea before the product development stage. 

If, having read these lines, you feel a UX audit is what you need, think about hiring outside consultants to conduct the audit. In case you aren’t on a tight budget, it would be much more efficient to have a fresh eye on your project. First of all, you can avoid biased opinions as it’s pretty hard for the internal teams to stay objective, evaluating the project they’re involved in. The second thing is to find gaps in user experience, you should be in a user’s shoes, walking through the customer journey for the first time, clueless about what to expect from a product at the next step. Quite a challenging task for internal stuff, right?

Whether you delegate a UX audit or decide to conduct it on your own, you should know what questions the auditing of a digital product will help you answer.

What is a UX audit outcome?

A correctly done UX audit covers a wide range of areas, including:

• usability
• product value
• visual attractiveness
• usefulness
• action stimulation

While not being a magic wand designed to heal all UX issues, the UX audit can help to answer the vital questions. 

Here are the main ones:

• What difficulties do users face interacting with your product?
• Do they have complications with functionality or navigation?
• Where is that point in customers’ journey when users abandon your website?
• What do metrics tell you about users’ behavior?
• What changes can you implement to make your website or app perform better?

The UX audit findings are usually gathered in a report covering both behavioral, quantitative, and qualitative data. The report may include information derived from traffic and heat map analysis, A/B and usability testing, customer journey mapping, and heuristic evaluation. We’ll talk more about the latter further in this article. 

There is no “one size fits all” report as its format depends much on the audit business goals and information complexity. 

It would be a bit of an overstatement to say your conversion will immediately go up once a UX audit reveals the issues. However, based on the website or app usability audit’s findings and recommendations, you can build a follow-up plan and implement changes that will eventually lead to ROI increase. 

Let’s see what may turn around after the UX audit. 

1. Your website or app will have clear and easy-to-follow from users’ point of view flow
2. You will use wordings, images, and CTAs that resonate with customers’ needs
3. More users will take expected actions (leave contact data, subscribe, or purchase)
4. You will better understand your users, enhance customer personas, and tailor your marketing communications accordingly

A smooth customer journey and improved functionality entail customer satisfaction level growth. And from the business perspective, satisfied customers mean higher sales.

This graph shows the benefits of the improved user experience.

And now, let’s clarify what essential steps of the UX audit you should follow to make the most out of it.

Step 1: Identify your goals, resources, and budget

Like any other project, a UX audit must have clear goals written to determine what we want to achieve and what we need to get things done. Doing the audit just for putting a tick in a checkbox is a bad idea as it won’t make you any closer to your true business objectives.

Before getting started with the audit itself, make sure you have defined:

1. What are the UX audit ultimate goals?

Usually, conversion increase is considered as the principal goal. However, you can target other metrics, which correspond to your business specifics.

2. Who will be involved in the audit?

It’s necessary to make sure that all participants involved in the UX audit have a strong understanding of what you expect customers to experience using your product. Ask every UX audit team member to walk the path a user typically goes through and track every point that can potentially hinder a seamless customer journey. 

3. What are the budget and the timeline set for the audit?

Parkinson’s law says: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” Whether your internal team is doing the audit or you decided to outsource this task, establish a project timeline and break it into milestones. Being an analytical process, however, the audit shouldn’t stretch endlessly. 

Also, be aware of the budget you’re ready to spend. In the ballpark, a freelancer can make a quick one-two day audit for $1500 with a short design checklist as a result. If you want a profound analysis, it could cost around $7000 and more depending on the project scope, complexity, and timeframes. 

Step 2: Gather all data or “50 shades of analysis”

This step is probably the most difficult one. If you took Step One seriously, you already know the audit goals and imagine what information you need to achieve them. The next step is to find out how and where to retrieve the necessary data. Below I’m going to name the major sources of information you can refer to during the UX audit. 

Business analysis: stakeholders interviews and product requirements

Whereas UX research aims to better understand the potential users of a product or service (by the way, we have UX research dedicated article on our blog), the UX audit should primarily focus on understanding the audited product’s business goals. It’s hard to imagine a more reliable source of such information than stakeholders and business owners. A quick survey with general questions asking about the product purpose, the problems, and how management wants them to be fixed can be a good starting point of business analysis. 

For deeper insights, one-on-one interviews with stakeholders and product managers, developers, marketers, sales, and customer service people would work better.

It’s also helpful to dig into product requirements and analyze if any of them could lead to usability issues. Understanding why a particular design decision was made will help elaborate on actionable recommendations of user experience improvements.

User analysis: user personas and user flow

Who can tell you better about user experience than if not users themselves? Doing the UX audit, you should gather as much information about customers who use the audited product as possible. Usually, businesses create so-called user or buyer personas, a generalized image of target customers’ groups that you can utilize for getting to know the digital product’s audience. We have a dedicated article about SaaS buyer personas, so I encourage you to take a look to learn more about this marketing concept. 

Besides user personas, you may also extract valuable information about customers from stakeholder interviews if C-levels have good knowledge of their customers.

The best though the most time-consuming way is to conduct interviews directly with end-users putting from five to ten questions about their experience with the product.

Based on the insights you receive from user interviews, you can imagine a flow each user follows to meet their objectives, all the possible difficulties they may face, and wrong paths they may be heading. 

Quantitative analysis: traffic analytics and heatmap analysis

Analytical tools are irreplaceable assistants in useful information gathering. Traffic analytics and heatmap analysis would be the most insightful data sources for the UX audit. For sure, you are familiar with Google Analytics that provides “diagnostic” metrics like bounce rate and on-page (or dwell) time, showing how much time users spend on your website. I called them diagnostics as these metrics can objectively tell us whether users engage with your content or abandon the site soon after they get there, puzzled and frustrated. 

Heatmap analysis is a crucial tool to use during the UX audit. Heatmaps represent the way users interact with your website interface. Some heatmaps track clicks and scrolls; some of them document cursor movements. 

Regardless of heatmaps mechanics, their main goal is to better understand users’ on-site behavior and unveil potential flaws in a customer journey.

We’ll talk more in detail about the UX audit tools in a separate article.

Qualitative analysis: heuristic evaluation aka common sense

When creating a design for digital products, UX designers follow usability heuristics to make websites or apps user-friendly. Jacob Nielsen, a co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, a world leader in research-based user experience, worked out ten general principles for interaction design. 

These principles aren’t some specific guidelines but more rules of thumb based on common sense. Generally speaking, Nielsen’s heuristics is nothing more than a cognitive walkthrough of a product as if you were a user. To make the heuristic evaluation, you should just document every obstacle you encounter when following a customer journey trying to see the product from the user’s point of view.

Even though heuristic evaluation sounds very simple, it is quite tough to perform it doing the audit internally as it’s pretty difficult to stay unbiased and act as a clueless user that came to your website for the first time. Due to this reason, it’s recommended that you involve several people to participate in the audit to form an objective opinion.

Step 3: Organize your findings

At the moment, humanity didn’t invent something more convenient to aggregate findings for further analysis than old good Google spreadsheets. Don’t forget to upload the spreadsheets to the cloud to make them accessible to all the participants for collaboration.

To give you a helping hand I'd like to share some templates you might find useful: 250 best practices for usability and a template for usability goals.

Step 4: Elaborate on actionable advice

Once the analysis is complete, the audit results should be compiled into a comprehensive report providing insights and recommendations on user experience improvement. The report may be up to 50 pages long and contain a quantitative data analysis, screenshots, customer interview recordings, and similar helpful information received during the UX audit.

When doing the UX audit for clients, Eleken designers create a screen-by-screen comparison of the existing design issues and advice on enhancing them. Below are the screenshots from the UI/UX audit we accomplished for TextMagic, who became our long-term client afterward.

Step 5: Implement recommendations

Needless to say that whatever valuable insights a UX audit brings to light, they won’t have any sense unless the recommendations are properly followed up. As user experience is built by joint work and effective collaboration of different departments, it’s crucial to make sure that all people engaged know what to do to create a smooth and hassle-free customer journey.

You should also take care of the correct UX audit results interpretation to make them clear to all the teams, from product managers to sales and support.

A final word

Being a time-consuming and relatively expensive process, yet the UX audit can drastically change your product’s performance by identifying the weak points in user experience that prevent customers from taking the expected actions. Powerful insights and thorough recommendations’ implementation may literally take your business to the next level. If you ever need help with auditing the UI/UX of your SaaS, just drop us a line. Also, take a look at our another article talking about how to create a successful product from the design perspective.