Published 21 April 2020

How to boost your business with a UX Audit

How to boost your business with a UX Audit

A lot of user problems often become apparent only after the BI application has been released into users’ hands.

Have you ever given a thought to whether your BI applications are used to their full potential? Or is the BI application serving the purpose it was once built for and is it enhancing productivity for the users or hindering it? If yes, then you are among many of us who are aware that BI applications are not a one and done story like some of our digital counterparts. BI applications need to evolve as the data within them evolves and changes over time. Also, as businesses gear up for changing market scenarios, requirements and processes change and take alternate routes to find new opportunities to be successful. Thus, there is a need to constantly keep re-evaluating, whether the BI applications that were once built to perfectly align with the user needs, still do so. Whether the user experience is still at its best and whether users still find these tools to be an asset to their productivity.

Benefits of a UX Audit

To course correct these unchecked dashboards and BI applications, a user experience audit is a great way to begin the process of reassessment. By conducting a UX audit, experts can pinpoint where the BI application is failing to align to the user needs, which areas of the application are good, and which need improvement. UX experts can provide recommendations exactly geared towards improving the problem areas reported by the findings of the audit. The outcomes of a UX audit can result in either spot fixes or re-designs based on the results. This can save teams from going back and forth with the users about issues they face, thus saving time and resources which means quick wins for all parties to revamp the applications.

SUS Survey Method

A UX audit can be conducted through multiple methods based on timeline and budget. One of the methods that is highly tried and tested over the years is SUS (System Usability Satisfaction) survey method. This method is known to be efficient and most cost effective way to test applications. As the name suggests it is a user satisfaction survey which translates user feedback into useful insights about the application’s usability, learnability and functions and features within the applications that users like and dislike. The SUS survey is a great way to engage in a dialogue with the application users and find out where the application stands in terms of usability.

Transform Insights into Actions

We do a lot of user testing and follow iterative and agile processes with our applications. Although testing during development sprints is very important, a lot of the problems become apparent only once the product has been released into the real world where the real application users interact with it. When there are issues seen in adoption rate, applications sitting in a state of limbo or changes in business requirements, then those applications become good candidates for User Experience Audits.

A UX audit can help in uplifting dashboards and applications that are less successful in fulfilling user needs or that are stuck in time and need a refresh. And for BI applications that are running successfully, a UX audit can help reassure that they are on the right track, because the user perspective always differs from that of the project teams and higher ups. In summary, investing in a UX audit can help teams gather useful insights about the success rate of their BI applications and transform those insights into actions.

“Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.” — Steve Jobs

Apeksha Pathak