A selection of useful tools and checklists for using as part of a site review.
Try to test the experience with a screen reader
- Using NVDA to Evaluate Web Accessibility - Windows screen reader
- Using VoiceOver to Evaluate Web Accessibility - Mac, iPhone, iPod, iPad screen reader
Try to navigate using just your keyboard
- GTmetrix
- Google Page speed insights
- Pingdom website speed test
- WebPagetest
- Smashing Magazine Front-end Performance Checklist 2018
- What Does My Site Cost? / The Web Worldwide
- Performance audits for the web
- Winning on Mobile - Google Speed Scorecard
- Introducing Speed Tools - Google lovely poster!
- W3C HTML validator
- W3C CSS validator
- JS source complexity
- Modern.ie site scan
- CSS Coverage - identify unused CSS
- Parker stylesheet analysis tool / good explanation of usage
- CSS Stats
- SonarQube
- Good ol' manual view source
- Is everything set up to its full potential from a business perspective?
- Who is using the site?
- Who isn't using the site? Why might this be?
- What can conversions (or lack of) tell us?
- Can we see any errors and their root cause?
- What are people trying to do (even if they can't), and what can this tell us? (Look at their journeys, searches, etc)
- Use this information alongside actual user research, or other expert findings.
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Do any layout issues occur on different sizes of screens?
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Can the user carry out the same tasks across different devices, or are they prevented?
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Have very large or very small screens been considered?
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Can any functionality be used without screens?
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How else does it adapt to situations?
- Does everything update correctly?
- Input validation appropriate/too lax?
- Is there anything that should be able to be managed that isn't?
- Is the CMS causing any limitations in experience
- (Processes - see below)
Walk through key journeys, tasks, goals that have been identified. Ideally look at sites that you're not overly familiar with.
- Spreadsheet of criteria/scoring - good for comparing related sites. (Todo - upload and link)
- UX Check
- Google Mobile Friendly check
Investigate integrations from a technical/usability perspective
- UI consistency
- Responsive journey
- Single sign on
- Cross-domain tracking
- Performance impact
- Consistency of any emails/other communications sent by the third party
- SEO Web Page Analyzer
- SEO Site Checkup
- SEMRush (keywords)
- Channels for communication with customers and digital tie-ins
- Admin processes
- Current non-digital processes
- Do they appear in Google Shopping listings (etc)?
- Favicon
- 404 page
- Social meta tags
- Structured data/microformats
- Licencing for data