What is a UX Ecosystem Audit?

A User Experience (UX) Ecosystem Audit is a comprehensive evaluation of an organization’s digital user experience landscape, encompassing websites, portals, products, services, plugins, and more. This audit goes beyond examining individual applications by investigating the interconnectedness and alignment of user experiences across all digital touchpoints.

The title “3 Birds One Ecosystem Audit” is a play on the phrase “feed two birds with one scone” because you can achieve all three of the objectives discussed below on the heels of the same audit process as long as they are prioritized and the appropriate information is collected. This is a fantastic opportunity to set yourself up for success in multiple ways without tripling your cost.

Why is it Necessary?

For Chief Product Officers (CPOs), Senior Vice Presidents (SVPs), and other digital product and service organization leaders, understanding and optimizing the user experience across your digital ecosystem is critical. A digital ecosystem audit empowers organizations to:

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Enhance user experience and meet expectations – Users today expect seamless, intuitive, and consistent experiences across all platforms and devices. An audit helps identify gaps and areas where best practices (and thus user expectations) are unmet. This arms leadership with the knowledge needed to provide a better omnichannel experience to users, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty

Achieve greater efficiencies and business alignment – A comprehensive audit can uncover inefficiencies across digital properties, leading to more consistent and streamlined solutions. This drives better service outcomes, enhances operational efficiency, and allows easier adoption of emerging technologies like AI and modern automation.

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Reach regulatory compliance – Regulations are changing within the U.S. and globally, and it’s in the best interest of companies who want to remain competitive to change with them. An ecosystem audit can help identify issues that prevent organizations from achieving accessibility and privacy regulation conformance, empowering companies to address those issues and lower their legal risk.

But Why Now?

There are many reasons why now is the right time for an ecosystem audit. Three of the most common scenarios are:

    1. Your organization is undergoing a digital transformation
      Many organizations are moving to a cloud/SaaS model. Successfully navigating this transformation requires a clear understanding of the current state and the opportunities for how the new model can address issues that have hampered legacy products and services. Gaining this clear understanding means starting with a digital ecosystem audit.

 

    1. Your organization is establishing or expanding a design system.
      Design systems have become a powerful tool, reducing development time, increasing designer efficiency, and providing a more consistent user and brand experience. The first step in any design system is an audit. An audit helps you catalog and inventory your screens, templates, components, content types, business objects, and interactions. An ecosystem audit is especially needed if your design system is meant to support more than one property. The audit findings will clarify the current state and level of sprawl. If you are already conducting audits to support accessibility remediation, why not use this opportunity to identify your design system building blocks.

 

  1. Your organization is not meeting the latest regulatory requirements
    According to section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, organizations that receive federal funding or assistance must also meet digital government accessibility requirements. (source: Section508.gov). Even if your organization does not receive federal funding, providing accessible digital experiences results in large business benefits and mitigates legal risk.

Related Blog Post

Want to leverage a design system without creating one from scratch for your organization? Many great open-source design systems can be themed and leveraged for your org.’s needs. Popular open-source design systems include Material.io by Google, the U.S. Web Design Systems (USWDS) by the GSA, and recently, the Simple Design System by Figma. Another consideration is the possibility of a future Global Design System (GDS) that builds on interaction and layout best practices along with digital accessibility conformance. The future of design systems may be global.

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Learn more about a GDS and how to prep your organization in our blog series starting with The Case for a Global Design System.

Addressing digital accessibility is now considered a business imperative. People with disabilities represent a large market that equates to an estimated $6.9 trillion in disposable income worldwide. Gartner recently predicted that over 80% of digital workplace application leaders will use accessibility as a key criterion for technology investments by 2025. An ecosystem audit that includes a focus on accessibility is the first step to ensuring compliance while at the same time, enhancing user experience and inclusivity.

The nuts-and-bolts of a UX Ecosystem Audit

By conducting a UX ecosystem audit, you’ll build a comprehensive map of the existing customer/user experience of your digital products and services. Cataloging screens, templates, components, and content prepares you for accessibility remediation, design system creation, and digital transformation work. (Feed three birds with one scone.)

The Process Involved

  1. Build stakeholder alignments: Engage key stakeholders through meetings and workshops to gather input and collect relevant documentation, ensuring a human-centered approach to understanding user needs and experiences.
  2. Identify and prioritize digital properties: Catalog the ecosystem including websites, portals, products, and services, for auditing. Prioritize the audit work in batches focusing on properties with the highest user interaction and impact on the user experience first.
  3. Tailor the audit framework: Develop a framework for multi-system analysis to evaluate user interfaces, interaction patterns, information architecture, workflows, and content tone. This framework should prioritize human-centered design principles and user experience best practices for user experience. Note: Limina has an existing framework that can be tailored to the types of properties in your organization’s ecosystem.
  4. Conduct audits: Conduct thorough audits of the selected digital properties to capture the diversity and commonality of templates, components, interaction patterns, and visual assets that make up the user experiences, including capturing accessibility remediation requirements and candidates for design system inclusion. Emphasize understanding the user’s journey, pain points, and satisfaction levels.
  5. Provide recommendations: Compile findings and provide recommendations on how to achieve accessibility compliance, while implementing UX best practices and improving the overall user experience.
  6. Develop a strategy and roadmap: Draft a unified digital ecosystem UX strategy and a implementation roadmap that align with your digital transformation initiatives and UX maturity goals. Ensure thatthe strategy reflects a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors. Ensure that stakeholders understand how to maintain and improve the user experience continuously.

Expected Outcomes

  • A digital UX inventory: A Catalog of all digital assets in an extensible framework and assess their alignment with user-centered design best practices and accessibility standards
  • Accessibility and design recommendations: Insights and recommendations for improving usability and accessibility within and across digital properties
  • A holistic UX strategy and roadmap: This strategy includes prioritizing and addressing accessibility and usability issues, as well as a plan for implementing the proposed recommendations.
  • A design system plan: An approach to capturing and managing updated templates and components (both design files and code) for organization-wide use.

Conducting a UX Ecosystem Audit ensures that your organization meets legal accessibility standards, provides an inclusive user experience, and is well-prepared for future digital transformations, including adopting a global design system. This audit not only identifies current compliance gaps but also streamlines the design and development processes, reduces redundant efforts, and promotes a consistent and efficient digital experience across all platforms.

Want to talk about what a UX Ecosystem Audit can do for you?

Pull up a chair and grab a virtual coffee with our team to talk more about what a UX Ecosystem Audit might look like for your organization and how it can drive digital transformation outcomes!

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