Ux Audit

What Is Ux Audit?

Ux Audit is a specialized Claude Code skill designed to provide comprehensive, human-centric user experience (UX) evaluations for web applications. Unlike traditional automated quality assurance tools that focus on functional correctness, Ux Audit “dogfoods” web apps—browsing them as a real user would. It adopts user personas, pays close attention to emotional friction (such as trust, anxiety, and confusion), and documents findings in a structured audit report ranked by impact. By leveraging browser automation tools like Chrome MCP and Playwright, Ux Audit delivers actionable insights that go beyond simple bug detection, focusing on overall usability and user retention.

Why Use Ux Audit?

Modern web applications are evaluated not just on whether they work, but on how they feel to use. Usability, emotional response, and resilience are critical factors that impact user satisfaction and business success. Automated test suites and manual QA often overlook subtle user frustrations—unexpected navigation dead ends, confusing forms, or trust-eroding inconsistencies.

Ux Audit fills this gap by:

• Emulating real user journeys, including their emotions and goals.
• Tracking moments of friction that could lead to user drop-off.
• Testing edge cases like navigation with the browser back button or form refreshes.
• Providing a ranked list of issues with clear explanations and suggested remediations.

This approach empowers developers, designers, and product teams to prioritize UX improvements that matter most to end users, rather than just ticking off functional requirements.

How to Get Started

To begin using Ux Audit, you’ll need access to Claude Code with compatible browser automation tools. Ux Audit automatically detects available tools and selects the most appropriate one for your context:

1. Chrome MCP: Preferred for authenticated apps. It leverages your logged-in Chrome session, so session cookies and OAuth flows are preserved.
2. Playwright MCP: Suitable for public apps or when you want to run parallel browser sessions.
3. playwright-cli: Useful for scripted browser flows or when you need granular control over automation.

If no supported tool is detected, Ux Audit will prompt you to install Chrome MCP or Playwright.

Example:

Triggering a UX Audit

To trigger a UX audit, use any of the following phrases in Claude Code:

ux audit
dogfood this
ux walkthrough
qa test
test the app
check all pages

You can also specify a starting URL or a particular user persona to emulate.

Key Features

1. Emotional Friction

Tracking

Ux Audit monitors for moments that may induce trust issues, anxiety, or confusion. It logs these events along with context:

{
  "step": "Sign Up Form",
  "friction_type": "confusion",
  "description": "Password requirements not shown until after failed submission.",
  "impact": "high"
}

2. Click Efficiency

Analysis

The skill counts the number of clicks required to achieve key user goals—such as signing up, finding help, or making a purchase—highlighting inefficient flows.

Goal: Complete checkout
Clicks: 9
Industry benchmark: 5-6
Recommendation: Streamline address entry and payment selection.

3. Resilience

Testing

Ux Audit tests app stability by simulating actions like:

• Navigating back and forth using the browser controls
• Refreshing mid-way through a form
• Closing and reopening tabs

This uncovers issues such as lost progress or unexpected errors.

4. Persona

Emulation

You can specify a user persona (e.g., first-time visitor, returning customer, admin). Ux Audit adapts its behavior and expectations accordingly, surfacing issues relevant to that persona.

5. Structured, Ranked Reports

At the end of every walkthrough, Ux Audit produces a detailed, ranked report. Example output:

## UX Audit Report
### 1. Confusing

Onboarding (High Impact)
- Users are not shown password rules until after error. Causes frustration and drop-off.
- Recommendation: Display requirements inline.

### 2. Inefficient Checkout

Flow (Medium Impact)
- 9 clicks required versus industry standard of 6.
- Recommendation: Combine address and payment steps.

### 3. Lost Form Progress on

Refresh (Medium Impact)
- Refreshing the page during signup clears all data.
- Recommendation: Implement form state persistence.

Best Practices

• Define Clear User Goals: Before running Ux Audit, outline the key user journeys you want to evaluate (e.g., sign up, complete purchase, request support).
• Use Relevant Personas: Emulate the personas most relevant to your app’s audience for more actionable insights.
• Audit Both Authenticated and Public Flows: Use Chrome MCP for logged-in experiences, and Playwright for public or multi-user scenarios.
• Act on Reported Issues: Prioritize high-impact findings and verify fixes with follow-up audits.
• Iterate Regularly: Run audits after major releases or UI changes to catch regressions and new friction.

Important Notes

• Tool Compatibility: Ux Audit requires either Chrome MCP or Playwright. If neither is installed, follow the provided instructions to set up one of these tools.
• Privacy & Security: When using Chrome MCP, your session cookies and authenticated state are used. Ensure sensitive data is handled appropriately during audits.
• Automation Scope: Ux Audit is not a replacement for comprehensive accessibility or security testing, but it complements these with a human-focused usability perspective.
• Customization: While Ux Audit is highly automated, tailoring the walkthrough to specific user goals and personas yields the best results.

For more details and the latest updates, refer to the Ux Audit GitHub repository.