UX audit checklist (100 items)
A UX audit checklist is a set of yes-or-no items for reviewing an interface step by step. This one has 100 items in 10 categories, from navigation to checkout. Where an item has a basis, the WCAG 2.2 success criterion or Nielsen heuristic is written next to it. The items you leave unticked become the draft of your list of fixes.
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The checklist
100 items, 10 categories
JavaScript is off, so the counter, filter and copy don't work. You can still tick the boxes or print the page.
- Navigation 12
- Search 8
- Forms 14
- Content 10
- Accessibility 16
- Performance 6
- Mobile 10
- Trust 8
- Errors 8
- Ecommerce 8
Search and filters
8 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Forms
14 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Content and interface text
10 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Accessibility
16 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Performance
6 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Mobile
10 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Trust and transparency
8 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Errors and empty states
8 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Ecommerce and checkout
8 itemsNothing left unticked in this category.
Your ticks are stored only in this browser and are never sent anywhere. "Copy as text" copies only the unticked items, with their categories, to the clipboard.
How to use the list
Use the list on one flow, not the whole site. "Guest checkout on mobile" is a good scope. The narrower the scope, the clearer each yes or no becomes.
Try every item on a real device. For "an invalid field is identified", fill in the form wrongly and submit it. In my audits I've been wrong most often on items I ticked by looking at the design file.
If your product has no search, or an item doesn't apply, tick it and move on. The list isn't for scoring points; it's there to remind you of the places that get missed.
When you're done, press "Copy as text". The unticked items land on your clipboard with their categories. Paste them into a table and give each one a severity rating. I explain how I rate severity in the UX audit guide.
Where the items come from
Items with a source in brackets rest on three sources: Nielsen's heuristics, WCAG 2.2 and Core Web Vitals. The ones without a source come from the problems I note most often in my own audit work.
Items marked "Nielsen, heuristic" come from Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics. The NN/g article was first published on 24 April 1994 and last reviewed on 30 January 2024. You'll find the method for comparing screens against the heuristics on the heuristic evaluation page.
Items marked "WCAG" are success criteria from W3C's WCAG 2.2 standard. The text I used is the W3C Recommendation of 12 December 2024. The list contains some of the A and AA criteria; I left out AAA.
The performance thresholds come from Google's Core Web Vitals. According to web.dev, the "good" limits are 2.5 seconds for LCP, 200 milliseconds for INP and 0.1 for CLS. It recommends measuring mobile and desktop separately, at the 75th percentile of page loads.
Using it as an ecommerce UX checklist
If you're looking at an online shop, the "Ecommerce and checkout", "Forms" and "Trust and transparency" categories help most. The step where the user spends money sits in these three.
Problems such as shipping costs appearing at the last step or forced sign-up don't show on a single screen. Try the flow from start to finish: put something in the cart and enter a wrong coupon. You can read what forced sign-up can cost in the $300 million button story.
I've collected the patterns of the payment screen in the checkout page article. For topics specific to the sector, see the ecommerce UX guide.
In what order to look
You don't have to read the list from top to bottom. I start an audit at the step where the user spends money or time. In a shop that's checkout; in a bank it's a money transfer.
At that step I go through "Forms" and "Errors and empty states" first. Then I repeat the same flow on a phone and look at the "Mobile" items. A form that looks fine on desktop can hide its button when the phone keyboard opens.
I do the accessibility items in a separate round: keyboard first, then contrast, screen reader last. You can use the contrast checker to measure contrast.
I leave the performance items for last. A measurement on my own computer is a single load, while web.dev recommends looking at the 75th percentile. If you have real user data, look at that.
The navigation and content items stay open throughout the flow. The moment I get stuck on a menu label, I leave that item unticked and note why.
What this list can't do
A checklist is part of an expert review. It doesn't tell you why users get stuck; it only shows you where to look. Before a big decision, check the findings with usability testing.
The accessibility items don't replace a full conformance test either. Testing every WCAG 2.2 criterion one by one, with assistive technologies, is a separate job. I describe that process on the accessibility audit page.
The items don't all carry the same weight. A broken payment button and a misaligned icon sit on the same kind of line. Severity decides which gets fixed first.
My note
In my own audits, the unticked items pile up most in forms and error states. Teams design the happy path, where everything goes right, well. For a mistyped coupon or a dropped connection, often no screen has been drawn at all.
Don't skip the keyboard pass either. Putting the mouse down and trying to finish the flow with only Tab and Enter takes a few minutes. You'll see the five keyboard items in the accessibility category in that one round.
This list is the skeleton of my own audits as well. There's one difference in the report: for every finding I add a screenshot and a concrete fix.
Questions
Is a UX audit checklist the same as a UX audit?
No. The list reminds you where to look during an audit. An audit ties every problem found to a screen and a heuristic, rates its severity and writes a fix.
Are my ticks saved?
Ticks are stored only in the browser you're using and never go to a server. They're lost in a private window or if you clear your browser data. For a lasting copy, use the "Copy as text" button.
If I tick every item, is my product accessible?
No. The list contains only some of WCAG 2.2's A and AA criteria. A conformance statement needs an accessibility audit that tests every success criterion separately.
Does the list work for mobile apps too?
Most of it does. The navigation, forms, errors and mobile categories apply to apps as well. You can skip web-specific items such as the page title and the lang attribute in an app.
Sources (3)
- Jakob Nielsen, 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, Nielsen Norman Group. 24 April 1994, last reviewed 30 January 2024; heuristic numbers
- W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2. W3C Recommendation, 12 December 2024; success criterion numbers and levels
- Philip Walton, Web Vitals, web.dev (Google). last updated 31 October 2024; LCP, INP and CLS thresholds