Design Audit

Design Audit

What it is: A Design Audit evaluates the consistency, usability, and effectiveness of all visual assets across your brand, from emails and ads to product pages and checkout flows. It ensures every pixel reinforces trust, clarity, and conversion.

Why it matters for ecommerce merchants: Design consistency boosts trust. Inconsistent design creates friction and confusion that drives users away. McKinsey reports that companies with consistent, well-designed customer experiences outperform competitors by 2x on revenue growth.

Common Steps

1. Inventory & Organize Design Assets Start by collecting and cataloging your existing visual assets:

• Website pages (home, product, cart, checkout, landing pages)
• Email templates and ad creative
• Brand guidelines, typography, color palettes
• Iconography, imagery styles, and UI components

This provides a baseline to evaluate consistency and reuse.

2. Evaluate Consistency Across Channels Check for alignment in brand expression across all customer touchpoints:

• Are colors, fonts, and logos used consistently?
• Do buttons, cards, and forms follow a unified component style?
• Does your visual tone match your messaging and audience expectations?

This step often uncovers visual drift between teams or channels.

3. Assess Usability & Accessibility Design is only good if people can use it:

• Are key elements (CTAs, nav, filters) clearly visible and distinguishable?
• Do color contrasts meet WCAG accessibility standards?
• Is the design optimized for all screen sizes and devices?

Accessible design improves usability and legal compliance.

4. Analyze Visual Hierarchy and Clarity Ensure that your designs are guiding user attention effectively:

• Is important information prioritized visually (headlines, price, reviews)?
• Are there clear focal points and scannable layouts?
• Is whitespace being used to reduce cognitive overload?

This directly impacts conversion and engagement.

5. Identify Gaps, Redundancies & Opportunities Wrap with an actionable assessment:

• Are there duplicate design elements or inconsistencies?
• Are any templates or layouts underperforming?
• What design updates could improve performance or reduce friction?

Prioritize fixes based on impact and alignment with business goals.

Challenges:

• Gathering and assessing design assets across platforms
• Defining standards that balance function and creativity
• Aligning stakeholders on visual direction and brand integrity
• Implementing changes without derailing timelines or UX