kensaurus audit-ux-journeys — User-Story, Task-Completion & IA Audit
Degree of freedom: MIXED — Story derivation, IA, and evidence tags
[HIGH freedom]; Phase 2 headed walkthrough [LOW freedom — run exactly].
A site can pass every per-page heuristic and still fail: pages clean, yet nobody
can find the feature, checkout takes nine steps with two dead ends, and nav
follows the database schema. audit-ux judges pages; this skill judges
paths and structure.
The 2026 consensus: a UX audit is not personal taste. Derive stories from the product, walk the journeys, audit IA against mental models, and ground findings in behavioral evidence when it exists. Pre-launch: qualitative walkthroughs, labeled as assumptions.
Before ANY browser interaction, read protocol-browser-anti-stall and apply
its rules to every step.
Report-first. Prioritized audit, then delegate: per-page heuristics/ microcopy →
audit-ux· single-screen →enhance-web-ux· forms →enhance-web-forms· WCAG →audit-accessibility· speed →audit-performance· feature parity →audit-realworld. Owns the cross-page journey and IA layer.
Core principle — stories over pages, data over taste
- The unit of audit is a story, not a screen. Every finding attaches to a user story and a step in its path.
- Derive stories from the product, not imagination. Routes, nav, CTAs, README, marketing copy, existing PRDs.
- Evidence or hypothesis — say which. Tag
[data],[observed], or[judgment]. Presenting[judgment]as[data]is the cardinal sin. - Findable beats beautiful. Depth, labels, and grouping vs the user's mental model, not the module layout.
- Prioritize by impact × effort. Slow checkout beats a slow About page.
How to reason — Observe → Interpret → Classify → Severity
- Observe — quote the story, the step, the route/nav evidence, and the walkthrough or funnel number
- Interpret — can the persona complete the claimed task, and is the next click obvious?
- Classify — COMPLETED / COMPLETED-WITH-FRICTION / BLOCKED; evidence tag
[data]/[observed]/[judgment] - Severity — Blocker = cannot complete; then impact × effort. A "confusing" page with 95% pass-through is not Critical
Worked example
Observe: Story "As a returning customer I want to reorder — done when confirmation shows." Desktop: 7 clicks; cart cleared on refresh at step 3. Mobile 390: hamburger does not open; pricing unreachable. No analytics SDK. Interpret: mobile cannot start the story; desktop completes with data-loss friction. Nothing to upgrade the evidence tag. Classify: BLOCKED (mobile nav) + COMPLETED-WITH-FRICTION (desktop cart). Evidence:
[observed]. Severity: Blocker for mobile findability; High for cart-loss. Finding: Checkout loses cart on refresh | Blocker | observed | buy §3 | High × Med | debug-error → enhance-web-ux
Phase 0 — Derive the stories and scope the trigger [HIGH freedom]
0a. Extract user stories from the real product
# Route inventory (framework-appropriate)
fd -H 'page\.(tsx|jsx|vue|svelte)' app/ src/app/ 2>/dev/null; fd -H . src/routes pages 2>/dev/null -t f
# Navigation + entry points
rg -n -i "<nav|navbar|sidebar|menu|Link.*href|routerLink|to=\"/" -g '*.{tsx,jsx,vue,svelte}' -l
# What the product promises (CTAs, marketing verbs)
rg -n -i "get started|sign up|buy|checkout|create|upload|invite|export|book|order|subscribe" -g '*.{tsx,jsx,vue,svelte,md}'
# Existing story sources — reuse, don't re-invent
fd -H -i 'prd|user-stor|journey|persona' docs/ .cursor/ 2>/dev/null
Write 5–10 stories max, each with a completion signal:
As [persona], I want [goal] — done when [observable outcome]. If design-prd
output or plan-test-coverage story inventory exists, start from it.
0b. Scope by audit trigger (sets depth and method)
| Trigger | Method emphasis |
|---|---|
| KPIs dropping | Targeted: the affected funnel only; cross-validate with data; check recent changes |
| Complaints rising | Thematic: cluster complaints → walk those stories first; treat complaints as hypotheses |
| Redesign planned | Comprehensive: all stories + full IA; findings shape the redesign |
| Pre-launch / no data | Qualitative walkthroughs of critical flows (signup, onboarding, checkout); label all findings [judgment] |
| "Just optimize" | Holistic roadmap: start at highest-impact stories, surface UX debt |
Phase 1 — Information architecture & navigation audit (structural) [HIGH freedom]
Build the route tree, then audit structure against findability. Detailed commands and pass/fail signals in references/checklist.md.
| # | Check | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| IA1 | Click depth per story target — core-story destinations reachable in ≤3 clicks from landing | Money pages buried 4+ clicks deep |
| IA2 | Orphan pages — every route reachable from some nav/link path | Routes with zero inbound links (exist only by URL) |
| IA3 | Dead ends — every page offers a forward action | Pages with no CTA/next step (journey stalls) |
| IA4 | Label consistency — nav label ≈ page title ≈ H1; same concept = same word everywhere | "Billing" in nav → "Payments" title → "Invoices" H1 |
| IA5 | Grouping vs mental model — nav organized by user tasks/goals | Organized by DB schema or team org chart |
| IA6 | First-click logic — for each story, the correct first click from the landing page is the obvious one | Correct path requires insider knowledge |
| IA7 | Wayfinding — breadcrumbs in hierarchies ≥3 deep; current location highlighted | User can't answer "where am I?" |
| IA8 | Search & filtering — present and functional for large content/data sets | 200 items, no search; filter resets on nav |
| IA9 | URL sanity — URLs human-readable, hierarchical, shareable | Opaque ids everywhere; state lost on refresh |
Verdicts: Pass / Fail / N-A with file:line or route evidence. IA6 requires the browser (Phase 2).
Phase 2 — Story-by-story task walkthroughs (headed browser) [LOW freedom — run exactly]
Walk every story from Phase 0, entry → completion signal, desktop and mobile viewport (390px — most real friction is mobile). Per story record:
STORY: [As … I want … — done when …] Trigger tag: [data|observed|judgment]
Entry: [landing/deep-link] Steps to goal: N clicks / M inputs
Friction log: [each hesitation, mislabel, backtrack, surprise — with screenshot]
Error recovery: [wrong input / back button / refresh mid-flow — data survives? path recoverable?]
Success moment: [is completion confirmed clearly? what happens next?]
Result: COMPLETED / COMPLETED-WITH-FRICTION / BLOCKED (blocker = finding, severity Blocker)
Rules: screenshots to .playwright-mcp/ per the artifact-hygiene rule; forms
judged only for flow-level friction (field-level → enhance-web-forms);
per-page heuristic violations noticed along the way are handed to audit-ux,
not re-audited here.
Phase 3 — Evidence layer (validate or label) [HIGH freedom]
# What analytics exist?
rg -n -i "gtag|googletagmanager|G-[A-Z0-9]{6,}|posthog|clarity\.ms|hotjar|amplitude|mixpanel|plausible|umami|fathom" -g '*.{ts,tsx,js,jsx,html,vue,svelte}' -l
- Data available (GA4/PostHog/Clarity/Amplitude/Mixpanel, or Sentry for error hotspots): pull funnel completion and drop-off per story path, top exit pages, rage-click/dead-click signals. Upgrade or refute walkthrough findings — a "confusing" page with a 95% pass-through rate is not a Critical finding.
- No data (typical pre-launch): every finding stays
[observed]or[judgment]. Say so in the report, and recommend minimal instrumentation (page + funnel events on core stories) so the next audit has evidence.
Phase 4 — Prioritized report [HIGH freedom]
## UX Journey & IA Audit — [product] — [date]
**Trigger:** [scenario] · **Stories audited:** N · **Evidence:** [analytics available? which]
**Working well:** [1–3 genuine strengths — always present]
### Task-completion matrix
| Story | Result | Steps | Frictions | Blockers | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reorder as returning customer | COMPLETED-WITH-FRICTION | 7 (target ≤4) | 3 | – | [observed] |
| Find pricing from landing | BLOCKED (mobile) | – | – | menu unreachable | [observed] |
### IA verdicts (IA1–IA9)
| Check | Verdict | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
### Findings (each: severity · evidence tag · story · impact×effort quadrant)
| # | Finding | Severity | Evidence | Story/step | Impact | Effort | Fix via |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Checkout loses cart on refresh at step 3 | Blocker | observed | buy §5 | High | Med | debug-error → enhance-web-ux |
### Quick wins (high impact · low effort — do first)
### Roadmap (high impact · high effort)
### Deprioritized (low impact — listed, not scheduled)
### Validate next (all [judgment] findings + the instrumentation to settle them)
Language discipline: neutral, behavior-grounded observations ("3 of 5 walkthrough runs backtracked at X"), never accusatory. One observation per finding, one paragraph max.
Forbidden: presenting [judgment] as data; re-auditing per-page
heuristics/microcopy that audit-ux owns; inventing personas unmoored from the
product; recommending a full redesign when incremental fixes close the findings;
a findings dump with no impact×effort prioritization; only-negatives reports
(name what works); auditing without walking the stories (a route-tree grep
alone is not a journey audit).
Self-critique before reporting [LOW freedom — do not skip]
- Walked, not grepped — every story has an entry → completion (or BLOCKED) record
- Evidence tagged —
[judgment]is never presented as[data] - Artifacts — screenshots under
.playwright-mcp/ - Right owner — per-page heuristics →
audit-ux; forms →enhance-web-forms; breakpoint layout →audit-responsive - Nothing implemented — report-first; delegate fixes
Related
audit-responsive— page-level layout/IA at 375 / 768 / 1440 (this skill is cross-page stories)audit-ux— per-page NN/g heuristics, Laws of UX, microcopy, emotional design (the page lens to this skill's path lens)enhance-web-ux/enhance-web-forms— fix the screens and forms this audit flagsaudit-uiux-design-system— visual token/component complianceaudit-accessibility/audit-performance— WCAG and speed lenses (delegated)audit-realworld— full-stack feature parity vs the RealWorld referenceplan-test-coverage— same story inventory, test-coverage lens; share Phase 0 outputdesign-prd— where stories come from on greenfield; this skill audits them post-buildtest-playwright— turn walkthroughs into regression coverage after fixescomplete-everything— close the audited gaps to done with verification