How can you use expert reviews to assess your UX design?

1 What is an expert review?

An expert review is a type of UX evaluation that involves one or more experts who examine your design and identify its strengths and weaknesses. The experts use their knowledge and experience to evaluate your design based on criteria such as usability, accessibility, functionality, aesthetics, and user satisfaction. The experts can either work independently or collaboratively, and they can use different methods and frameworks to conduct the review, such as heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough, or user testing.

2 Why use an expert review?

An expert review can help you to assess your UX design in a quick and cost-effective way, especially in the early stages of the design process or when you have limited resources or time. An expert review can also help you to uncover issues and problems that you might have overlooked or missed, and to get an objective and professional perspective on your design. An expert review can also complement other methods of UX evaluation, such as user testing or analytics, by providing qualitative and contextual feedback.

3 What are the challenges of an expert review?

An expert review also has some limitations and challenges that you need to be aware of and address. One of the main challenges is finding and selecting the right experts who have relevant and reliable expertise and who can provide constructive and actionable feedback. Another challenge is ensuring that the experts have a clear and consistent understanding of your design goals, target users, and context of use. A third challenge is synthesizing and prioritizing the feedback from multiple experts, and balancing it with your own vision and user feedback.

4 How to prepare for an expert review?

Prior to conducting an expert review, you must prepare some materials and information to enable the experts to evaluate your design efficiently. This includes providing a brief introduction and overview of the design project, such as its purpose, objectives, target users, and context of use. Additionally, you should provide a description of the scope and focus of the review, including the specific aspects or features you want the experts to assess and the criteria or questions you want them to answer. Furthermore, you should present a prototype or mockup of your design that is interactive and up-to-date for the experts. Lastly, you should provide instructions and guidelines for the experts on how to conduct the review, such as the method, format, duration of the review, and how to report and communicate their feedback.

5 How to conduct an expert review?

Expert reviews can be conducted either remotely or in-person, and either individually or collaboratively. Common methods and formats for expert reviews include heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthrough, user testing, and expert review sessions. Heuristic evaluation involves using predefined usability principles or heuristics to evaluate a design and identify any violations or issues. Cognitive walkthroughs simulate a user's actions and thoughts while performing a specific task with a design, evaluating how easy and intuitive it is to use. User testing has experts act as users to test a design in a realistic or simulated environment, evaluating how well it meets their needs and expectations. Expert review sessions involve a group of experts discussing their findings and feedback on a design, generating recommendations and suggestions for improvement.

6 How to use the feedback from an expert review?

After you conduct an expert review, you need to analyze and use the feedback that you receive from the experts to improve your design. This should involve collecting and organizing the feedback, looking for patterns, themes, and discrepancies. Additionally, prioritize the feedback based on its importance, urgency, and feasibility. Create a list of action items or changes that you need to make to your design and implement them. After testing the changes with your users and stakeholders, measure the impact and effectiveness of the changes. Finally, communicate the results and outcomes of the expert review and the changes to your design to the experts and thank them for their participation and contribution.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?