A UX audit is a structured pass through a product to find where people get stuck and why. B2B software has dense screens, several user roles and long workflows, so a general usability checklist only gets you part of the way. This one is built for that kind of product.
Run it with real tasks in hand. Pick the five jobs your users do most and walk through each one from start to finish. The items below are questions to ask along the way.
Before you start
Decide what you are auditing and for whom. An audit with no scope turns into a redesign.
- Pick the five tasks you will walk through
- Pick the roles to audit as: admin, regular user, read-only
- Collect what you already have: support tickets, session recordings, funnel numbers
- Agree on the output: a ranked list of findings, not a new design
Navigation and structure
People scan navigation for the one thing they came for, and give up quickly if it isn't there.
- Can a new user find each of the five tasks from the home screen without help?
- Do the labels use the customer's words or the company's internal ones?
- Is it always clear where you are and how to get back?
- Does search return the right result for the ten most common queries?
Data-heavy screens
Tables, dashboards and reports are where most of the complexity sits.
- Can people filter, sort and save a view without leaving the page?
- Does the table still work at 10,000 rows, and not only at 10?
- Are numbers formatted consistently, with units and time zones?
- Can people export what they see, in the shape they see it?
Empty, loading and error states
Teams design the happy path and skip the rest.
| State | What to check |
|---|---|
| Empty | Does it say what belongs here and offer a next step? |
| Loading | Is there feedback within a second, and does the layout hold still? |
| Error | Does it say what went wrong in plain words, and how to recover? |
| No permission | Does it say who can grant access, rather than just "denied"? |
Forms and data entry
- Are required fields marked, and are the optional ones really optional?
- Does validation happen as people type, or only on submit?
- Can a long form be saved and finished later?
- Are the defaults good enough that most people change only one or two fields?
Roles and permissions
Never leave a button that silently does nothing.
- Is it clear why an action is unavailable?
- Can an admin see what another role sees?
- Do invitations and role changes say what will happen?
Turning findings into a plan
Not every issue deserves a fix. Score each one for how often it happens (1 is rare, 3 is constant) and how much it costs the user (1 is an annoyance, 3 is a dead end), then multiply the two. Fix the high scores first and group the rest by area. Write each finding as a task: the problem, the evidence, the change you propose.