How I Run a Design Audit

Not a heuristic checklist with smiley faces. A day and a half, three documents, and one uncomfortable conversation that usually saves everyone a quarter of rework.

Here is the shape of it.

Half a Day: Use It Properly

Before opening a single file, I do the thing the product exists for. Sign up with a real email. Complete the core task. Try to undo it. Try to do it on a phone on mobile data.

Most of the findings come from this half day. The rest of the audit is evidence for what I already suspected here.

Half a Day: Map, Don’t Judge

• Inventory the surfaces. Every screen, state, and empty case. Screenshots on a wall, not in a folder.
• Mark the seams. Where do two teams’ work meet? That is where the experience breaks.
• Count the decisions. How many choices does the core task ask of someone who just wants the outcome?

An audit that lists forty issues gets ignored. An audit that names three causes gets funded.

Half a Day: Write Three Things

One page of what is working — genuinely, specifically, so the team knows you looked. One page of the three root causes. One page of what I would do first, second, and never.

Then the uncomfortable conversation, which is usually about ownership rather than pixels.