UX Design Review
Get Instant Feedback on Your Design
The UX Design Review is one of the most cost-effective methods to ensure your design performs as intended in the hands of the users.
Companies use us to regularly get feedback on design solutions, from early prototypes to late-stage design.
Things we review
- Graphical user interfaces: Apps, Web pages, Software programs, Small displays.
- Electro-mechanical devices, e.g., medical devices, ticket & wending machines, cars, production machines.
- Mechanical devices, e.g., insulin pens.
- Printed material, e.g., instructions for use.
- Packaging material.
- Powerpoint presentations, explainer videos and animations.
- Buildings and infrastructure.
We can do full reviews of entire systems or individual components.
Component reviews can be done on the same day. Full system reviews typically take 3-5 days, depending on the complexity of your design.
A design review can also be a good starting point to diagnose problems with existing designs.
Cost of a review
A typical 3-day review costs 40.000 Dkr. VAT excluded. However, a quick assessment of a design component will cost as little as 5.000 Dkr.
A cost driver is the size of the system. A large software system takes longer to review than a small app. Also, cost will increase if the design review requires us to be on site.
What is a UX Design Review?
Common misconceptions
- User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is not the same as a UX Design Review. A UAT is a technical review that ensures the implemented functional works a technically intended.
- The design review is not an opinion-based review. In contrast, all identified problems must be motivated by a reference to objective guidelines.
A UX Design Review is a systematic inspection that assesses design in order to identify problems that users will likely experience.
The design problems we identify vary in their severity and consequence for the users:
Error-prone design: Highly likely to cause the user to make errors.
Intellectual overhead: Design places an unnecessary intellectual burden on the user.
Design not compliant with business specific requirements or regulations.
With a design review the usability and the overall user experience of your design is improved in the most cost-effective manner possible.
How is a Review Carried Out?
A trained specialist goes through the design using knowledge of:
Specific business or regulatory requirements and guidelines
Heuristics, usability guidelines and best practice
Evidence-based psychological principles and knowledge
The basic psychological principles and knowledge basis is part of all reviews irrespective of the design that is reviewed. In contrast, the design heuristics, usability guidelines and best practice will differ relative to the technology domain the product belongs to.
What is the Outcome and Delivery from a Review?
Benefits of a UX Design Review
- Identify design problems you need not use an expensive usability test to find.
- Fast same-day feedback.
- Highly cost-effective.
- Review conceptual design not suitable for usability testing.
- Review small parts of the interface typically not suitable for a usability test.
- Identify problems that are hard to capture in a usability test.
- Actionable insights that are supplemented with objective route-cause descriptions.
- Can be applied to all types of design.
The delivery is a report typically in the format of a powerpoint presentation with visual examples of all problems identified.
Each design problem has the following three parts:
A description of the identified design problem that include either screenshots, photos or videos.
An objective root-cause description of the problem that clearly links to recognised design guidelines and/or psychological principles.
Clear and actionable recommendations. Sometimes even visualised with examples to be as plug-and-play for the design team as possible.
You get recommendations for design improvements that are clear and actionable.
Why Choose Us to Carry out Your Design Reviews?
At Design Psychology our professional backgrounds are rooted in academic fields that specialise in deep understanding of human behaviour, such as psychology and cognitive semiotics. We are, therefore, experts in how people function and know human factors guidelines by heart.
The profile of our UX Design Reviewers at Design Psychology is someone that:
Is deeply rooted in psychology.
Has extensive experience with human factors, usability, user experience, design guidelines and principles.
Has experience with usability testing in order to know the problems that people typically experience with design processes.
Has experience with design teams in order to provide recommendations that are as actionable as possible.
This highly professional design reviewer profile is your guarantee that our design reviews will deliver value to your design.
Want to get a UX design review?
Leave your contact info below, and we’ll reach back with you with a suggestion for a time for a brief chat.
See Examples from UX Design Reviews
We provide our design review services to a broad range of companies. Ideally, we would love to show examples for our deliveries to them. However, we are only legally able to showcase examples from public available cases.
The best way for us to demonstrate the value of a design review is for us to apply our systematic inspection to your design case.
A bit more about Guidelines and Principles
Design Guidelines and Principles
At the heart of a UX Design Review is the application of human factors guidelines and principles. These are also referred to as heuristics or rules-of-thumb.
Human factors guidelines capture essential known capabilities and limitations about humans. Therefore, they can inform us how to best design product user interfaces that integrate seamlessly with how people function best.
The guidelines can range from very specific to broad ranging. For instance, a guidelines like “provide meaningful error messages” relates closely to digital technology, whereas reduce cognitive load applies to a broad range of design like written communication.
Irrespective of the type of guidelines it falls upon the usability - or human factors specialist - to be well informed about them to apply them in the UX Design Reviews.
UX Design Review synonyms
- Heuristic Evaluation.
- Cognitive Walkthrough.
- Expert Review.
- Design Critique.
In design development, it is critical to ensure that your design works as easily as possible in the hands of the intended users. Usability tests are an essential tool to help ensure this. Most design projects, however, struggle with finding both time and budget to fit in enough usability tests to properly support design development. UX Design Reviews are a therefore a critical supplement to usability tests.
Our Review Process
Step 1. Download & brief
A UX Design Review starts with a download of the material to be reviewed and a short brief about what in particular the design team needs reviewed.
There might be special focus points the team needs input on to qualify a design decision. Design constraints might also be good to know about. No point in reviewing aspects that are locked and not subject to change.
Step 2. Chosing relevant guidelines
Given the large number of guidelines the reviewers first need to shortlist which guidelines are relevant.
It matters whether the product is purely digital like a graphical user interface such as an app, or purely mechanical such as an insulin injection device.
The more generic the guidelines are the broader application they have. However, they also become more difficult to apply and require more experience of the reviewer.
Step 3. Review of the design
Next is the formal review. It is conducted by two independent reviewers that apply the formal guidelines to the design.
The review is typically split into an informal self-monitored trying out the product" and the formal detail scrutiny of the product with each individual design guidelines.
Step 4. Findings & design mitigations
The UX Design Review aims to be a very operational report.
Each finding is documented visually (photo, video or screenshot) with a small description of "why", i.e., the psychological root-cause.
To assist quick design implementation we also provide suggestions that showcase what a solution could be. Importantly, the suggestion also serves to demonstrate the nature of the root-cause for the design team to more easily identify addtional potential design mitigations.