For the 3–5 requested improvements, and the improved Audiences mockup, I’ve framed them as part of a UX audit/report— a report like this would normally be more thorough, but I thought I could use it to outline the steps I’d take with a similar project. I conducted this exercise in not much more than a morning/half-day.

The UX audit process

When conducting a UX audit or usability heuristics analysis, I take the following steps:

1. Audit flows, visuals, interactions, layout, and content to find design issues. Is a tap-target too small? Does an input not change state when focused?
2. Develop suggestions for improvements. These should be quickly assembled in one or two bullet-points, and act as a suggestion to help an engineer loosely gauge the technical lift required to resolving the design debt. This is so any designer can pick up the task and have somewhere to state. I’d go as far as digital sketches (cut/paste) sometimes if they’re quick.
3. Prioritize improvements with a business and engineering leader, by determining areas of the most significant opportunity. To do this. I schedule a meeting to review findings and suggestions with authorities that can make judgements on technical feasibility and value to the business. Sometimes these can be the same person, so it’s just two of us reviewing. See the “UX value (1–4)” “Business value (1–4)” and “Technical ease (1–4)” columns of the table below for an example.
4. Execute with a team, based on capacity and priority. We turn the suggestions into and prioritize them in the backlog, to bring into upcoming sprints based on the organization’s priorities. If a task constitutes UX debt, a good philosophy is to treat it like a bug: 10% of a sprint should be reserved to deal with these issues, and if the issues are pile up a team should do a ux debt sprint (like a bug sprint).

Improving MetaMatch

For this assignment, I’ve identified 5 key areas for product improvement. These areas are Context, Navigation, Login/Signup, Core flows, and Mobile— each has at least one example improvement. I would suggest taking on each of these areas as its own project or design sprint.

MetaMatch has plenty of opportunities beyond these, adding new features and flexibility— some examples might include third-party login options, customization for team permissions, and new integrations. However, I would recommending addressing core design and usability issues as they will proliferate with the addition of new features.

Please navigate through each section of the table below to see more.