Why every transformation starts with an Audit

You can't improve what you don't understand. Whether you're launching a new project, improving your product, or your services, an audit is your starting point. It gives you a clear picture of the current situation, empowering you to make informed decisions.

In this article, I will explain what an audit is and why it matters.

The word audit comes from the Latin audire, meaning "to hear."

Think of an audit like a health check-up before a surgery. The doctor will run tests, check your vital signs, and ensure they understand your full condition. Why? Because taking action without understanding the situation can be risky, even dangerous.

Audits can be applied to almost any field, depending on what you're trying to improve.

Financial Audit - checks if your accounting is accurate, checks if your expenses make sense, and checks everything about your numbers.

Compliance Audit - Let's say you run a food company. A compliance audit ensures you're following health regulations, safety standards, and legal rules.

And even a personal audit - here is when you take a look at your own life, your habits, your goals, your energy. What's serving you, and what's holding you back? Based on this data, you know what to improve. (I wrote more about personal audits, you can find the link here, on how to run a personal self-audit quarterly review).

In this article,I will explain what a Design Audit is, why it is important.

A Design Audit is a critical evaluation of your existing design frameworks, processes and tools. Conducting a thorough Design Audit can provide several key benefits:

• Identify Workflow Inefficiencies: By examining your existing workflows, you can pinpoint areas where processes may be lagging or redundant. This allows you to streamline operations and optimize team productivity, leading to enhanced overall efficiency.

• Spot Design Inconsistencies: A detailed audit helps you uncover design elements that are meant to convey a unified brand identity but vary visually throughout your product. Addressing these inconsistencies not only strengthens your brand's visual coherence but also improves the user's perception of your product's professionalism.

• Identify underlying issues that may not be immediately visible before proceeding with a redesign or further investments.

• Diagnose User Experience Friction: Understanding where users encounter difficulties or delays in their interactions with your product is essential. By identifying pain points within the user experience, you can make informed decisions to enhance usability, leading to a more intuitive and satisfying experience for your audience.

By conducting a Design Audit, you set the stage for informed, strategic improvements that can elevate your design and user experience to new heights.

Now, let me provide a real-world example of how to improve the user experience, starting with an audit.

Let's say you want to improve your checkout process on your website. Improving is not about changing the colors or making other emotional decisions. You have to use real data to find real problems. Otherwise, you are just guessing. So first of all, you have to know exactly what to improve, which is why using real data is crucial for making informed decisions and feeling reassured about your choices.

How do you do this? Well, you look at how users, real people, are using your checkout process. You do this using analytical tools like screen records and heatmaps. This allows you to gain valuable insights into user behavior, making you more knowledgeable about your audience.

Let's say your checkout process consists of these five steps:

Step 1: Create an account or log in.

Step 2: Enter shipping information.

Step 3: Choose a shipping method.

Step 4: Provide billing information.

Step 5: Select a payment method.

How to see how real users interact with your product? There are a lot of tools that you can use, some of which are free, others you have to pay for, and they allow you to analyse session records. These tools include Google Analytics, Hotjar, and more..

Let's say you're analyzing these records you see that 80% of users drop off at 'Step 3 – the Shipping Method.' Now you have to ask why?

Users don't understand how long delivery will take or how much it costs or maybe some users expected free shipping.

What did you learn from the audit? Maybe there is a trust gap; users don't feel informed or in control. And there are a few things that you can do to improve this step:

• Add short, clear descriptions for each shipping option (e.g., "Standard delivery– 3 to 5 days – Free").

• Show the exact delivery dates based on the user's location (people like clarity).

• Display shipping costs earlier in the process.

If you're auditing your website, you can take immediate action by testing with real users or conducting an A/B test to see how different solutions work and identify the most effective ones.

If you are an employee and you are doing this for a company, and you have to 'convince' a lot of stakeholders. What youcan do is create a report with issues identified and the impact on users, and provide a set of solutions for each of them.

The important thing is that you don't just say: 'Here we have a problem, and this is the negative impact.'

You say: 'Here we have a problem, here is the impact on the customer experience, and here is how to solve it.' Stress the potential benefits for business outcomes.

Download a FREE guide on how to perform a High Value Design Audit here!