{"id":2141,"date":"2017-04-14T06:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2017-03-31T11:39:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T17:39:34","slug":"incorporating-ux-audit-tasks-into-a-user-research-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/incorporating-ux-audit-tasks-into-a-user-research-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Incorporating UX Audit Tasks into a User Research plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Beyond User Research presentation, from World Information Architecture Day, got me thinking about a related article called <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/usabilitygeek.com\/ux-audit-beginners-guide\/\">The UX Audit: A Beginner&#8217;s Guide<\/a><\/strong>, from Usability Geek. My other blog post about World IA Day was long enough, so I didn&#8217;t mention it then. But, the similarities in the article and the presentation were close and I wanted to mention it.<\/p>\n<h3>Alternative Methods for User Research<\/h3>\n<p>Unlike the article, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/lrosenfeld\/beyond-user-research\">the Beyond User Research presentation<\/a> isn&#8217;t a strict guideline. It doesn&#8217;t mention any particular research methods to follow. It shows that a UX team can schedule different research methods within a UX research plan. The presentation mentions at least two types of data sources: web metrics and user research.<\/p>\n<p>Web metrics examples included: search query data, logs from a call center, data from analytics reports, voice of the customer reports, CRM applications, and so on. A web analyst might try to reduce the volume of calls to call centers. A user researcher might want to know what most people are calling about. Rather than use this information as a web analyst would, a UX team can use this data as UX research.<\/p>\n<h3>UX Audit Methodology<\/h3>\n<p>The UX Audit article, being a guide, does mention several methods, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Review of business and user objectives<\/li>\n<li>Conversion metrics<\/li>\n<li>Customer care data<\/li>\n<li>Sales data<\/li>\n<li>Traffic\/engagement<\/li>\n<li>Compliance with UX standards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It suggests using, for example, conversion metrics this way:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Conversion rates or sales figures:<\/strong> If the premise of your site or app is eCommerce, sales or download figures can be useful to a UX audit. For example, here at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justinmind.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Justinmind<\/a>, we measure how many blog readers download our prototyping tool and from which particular posts&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It breaks down an audit into individual steps and mentions 3 goals that should be clarified before getting started: audit goals, time limit, and resources.<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of resources in this article, including links to Usability.gov, and even <a href=\"http:\/\/cdn2.hubspot.net\/hubfs\/439788\/Content_Offers\/UX_Design\/User_Experience_Audit_-_Sample.pdf?t=1484066350369\">a sample UX audit report<\/a>.\u00a0There&#8217;s definitely a cross-over between these two information sources.<\/p>\n<h3>Differences<\/h3>\n<p>The article warns that a UX audit can be time-consuming and expensive. For an external team, which they recommend, it states that a UX audit can cost &#8220;upwards of $1000 for a couple of days with a one-person team; the full monty of a UX team coming in for four weeks and providing in-depth, goal-orientated insights could cost up to $10,000&#8221;. It presents a UX audit as an official stage of a design cycle, and should be completed early on.<\/p>\n<p>The presentation, meanwhile, makes the case that teams can incorporate a variety of user research methods as an ongoing part of their UX activities. Rather than conduct a full-fledged UX audit, for instance, a UX team could schedule one of these methods periodically. The research cost, in time, money and resources, depends on the method and the goals.<\/p>\n<h3>Discussion<\/h3>\n<p>Quoting a high price tag for a usability study could be a limitation for teams eager to get started on conducing user research. The article mentions that a UX audit is most beneficial at the beginning of a project. Even with everyone knowing that, the high costs might dissuade a team from getting behind the research. What sounds like a boring activity might push them to just start designing.<\/p>\n<p>And\u00a0it&#8217;s a rare\u00a0opportunity to have\u00a0the time and resources to publish an official report,\u00a0like this. There&#8217;s a lot of other work to do.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of treating UX audits as a costly, one-time activities, why not use UX audit methods throughout the year?<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion<\/h3>\n<p>These two information sources can work together as complements. The article is very informative with specific guidelines. But the presentation shows how to &#8216;break the rules&#8217; a little, by conducting research on a regular schedule. This allows a team to keep up with their product throughout the year. A custom approach, such as doing repetitive quick hits seems like the best option.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, I recommend taking a look at the UX audit article. It links to many useful usability resources and websites providing analytics data.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Beyond User Research presentation, from World Information Architecture Day, got me thinking about a related article called The UX Audit: A Beginner&#8217;s Guide, from Usability Geek. My other blog post about World IA Day was long enough, so I didn&#8217;t mention it then. But, the similarities in the article and the presentation were close &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/incorporating-ux-audit-tasks-into-a-user-research-plan\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Incorporating UX Audit Tasks into a User Research plan&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[211,1,3],"tags":[419,418,415],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2141"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2153,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2141\/revisions\/2153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}