A comprehensive, checklist-based guide for evaluating the UX quality of any kind of site, app or system.

While I created this workbook to give you a ready guide to evaluating the UX of any digital product, it can’t (and shouldn’t) be used in a vacuum.

In order for this or any tool to be useful — to you, to your users and to the stakeholders you’re helping —you have to know one thing first, before you start your evaluation:

What does success really mean?

What truly constitutes success in the hearts and minds of your users or customers? Sure, they may be able to view a ton of data that details their investment performance, but can they make sense of it? Do they understand it? Can they make decisions based on it?

What I'm getting at here is that being able to do something successfully isn't enough — task completion does not equal success. The ability to view data or submit a form is the completion of a task. The ability to do something meaningful with that view or get what you need from that submission is what constitutes success.

What does success mean to the business, to stakeholders? What concrete things do they need to have happen as a result of user activity? Does the sales curve go up? Does employee efficiency or utilization increase because the system saves them time? Can we make better decisions because we have a clearer picture of where our money is being spent?

Sites and apps are loaded with tasks and activities, but knowing which ones deliver what users — and the business — considers to be success is where your time is best spent.

My point here is that the very first thing you have to ask is “what is success?” Once you have real answers to that question, you look at each possible or proposed feature, data point, content type or functionality and ask how does this element contribute to that success? How does it provide perceived value to a user, to encourage use?

And if they act, how do those actions bring value back to the organization?

When a product already exists and needs to be updated or reimagined, the UX Audit is your best friend in the world.

Casting a critical eye to everything from content to labeling to navigation to layout and well beyond is always the first thing you should do. Before anyone comes up with a wish list of new features and functions. Before any design or prototyping exploration happens.

Think first. Design next.

I hope this workbook helps light the way to UX improvement — GIVE GOOD UX!