A UX audit is the most efficient investment a business can make in an underperforming website before committing to a full redesign. It is a structured diagnostic - a systematic review of how your site behaves against how users actually behave - that surfaces the specific friction points suppressing conversion. Done well, a UX audit tells you exactly which problems to solve and in what order. Done poorly, it tells you what a designer thought looked nice.

Through The Glass Creatives conducts UX audits using a combination of heuristic evaluation (expert review against established usability principles), behavioral data analysis (Google Analytics, heat maps, session recordings), and structured review of user flow against conversion goals. The output is a prioritized findings report - not a list of aesthetic preferences, but a ranked set of friction points with estimated conversion impact.

What a UX Audit Covers

Heuristic Evaluation

A heuristic evaluation applies Jakob Nielsen's ten usability principles (visibility of system status, match between system and the real world, user control and freedom, consistency and standards, error prevention, recognition rather than recall, flexibility and efficiency, aesthetic and minimalist design, help users recognize and recover from errors, help and documentation) to every key page of your site. This surfaces structural problems that behavioral data cannot always catch - issues with navigation logic, labeling inconsistencies, and cognitive load that cause drop-off before users can articulate why they left.

Behavioral Data Review

Analytics data tells you where users drop off; qualitative research tells you why. A robust UX audit uses both. Heat maps show where users click and where they ignore. Scroll maps show how far down the page most users get before leaving. Session recordings show specific interaction failures - forms users abandon, buttons users try to click but cannot, navigation paths that lead to dead ends. This data-plus-observation combination separates evidence-based UX audits from expert-opinion-only reviews.

Conversion Funnel Analysis

Every site has a conversion funnel - the sequence of actions a user must complete to become a lead or customer. A UX audit maps this funnel explicitly and identifies where leakage is greatest. A contact form that 80% of users who start do not submit is a different problem from a homepage that 70% of users leave without navigating anywhere. Both are conversion failures; they require different interventions. See high-converting website design for the principles behind funnel design.

What a UX Audit Costs and What It Delivers

A lightweight UX audit (heuristic evaluation of key pages, no behavioral data) runs $2,000-$5,000. A comprehensive audit including behavioral data analysis, user flow mapping, and a prioritized findings report with implementation recommendations runs $5,000-$15,000. The return on a well-executed audit is typically realized in the first A/B test or focused fix cycle - identifying and correcting a single high-leakage point in a contact form or hero section can lift conversion rates by 20-50% without a full redesign.

"A UX audit is the cheapest way to find out why your site is losing the revenue your marketing is generating. Most businesses have already spent five times the audit cost on traffic that went nowhere." - Ravve Jay, TTGC

What to Do With UX Audit Findings

The output of a good UX audit is a prioritized list of recommendations, ranked by estimated impact and implementation complexity. The highest-priority items are typically quick wins: friction points that are structurally simple to fix but have significant conversion impact. Tackle those first - they fund the more complex structural changes. Do not run straight to a full redesign based on audit findings unless the structural problems are too systemic for targeted fixes. Often, three well-targeted improvements outperform a full rebuild at a fraction of the cost.

For businesses whose audit reveals structural rather than surface-level problems, TTGC's ux-design-services covers what a full UX engagement looks like after the diagnostic phase.