How to Prioritize UX Issues

Your product team has identified several usability problems. New users struggle with onboarding. An important action is difficult to find. Some interface components look inconsistent.

Each issue deserves attention, but your next release has limited room. Which changes should come first?

A UX audit helps identify friction and suggest improvements.

Turning those findings into a useful development plan requires another decision: understanding which problems most affect users, what evidence supports that assessment, and how to evaluate a proposed fix.

 

In this article, we explain how to make those decisions. Using examples from Onix’s product teardowns, we’ll look at how to describe UX problems, compare their priority, and connect recommendations to measurable user outcomes.

 

Start with the task your users need to complete

Before ranking individual findings, define the user journey you want to improve.

“Improve the dashboard” is too broad to guide a release. “Help new users create their first report” gives the team a specific task to examine.

 

For an online store, the task might be completing a purchase. For a learning app, it could be starting the first lesson. For a content creation tool, it might be producing and exporting a finished asset.

 

Describe the task in one sentence:

A new user should be able to create and save their first project without outside help.

Then walk through the steps required to complete it. At each step, ask:

 

• Is the next action clear?

 

• Does the interface provide the information needed to make a decision?

 

• Can users understand what happened after taking an action?

 

• If something goes wrong, can they recover?

 

This gives your review a consistent reference point. A visual inconsistency may deserve attention, but an unclear action that prevents users from completing the task has a more immediate consequence.

For a broader introduction to the review process, see Onix’s guide to conducting a UX audit.

 

Describe each UX issue before assigning a priority

A finding such as “the onboarding is confusing” leaves too much open to interpretation. Designers and developers may agree with the observation while imagining different solutions.

 

A useful finding explains where the problem appears, what users are trying to accomplish, and what makes that task difficult.

 

For example:

Before submitting a form, users receive no explanation of the required date format. If they enter an unsupported format, the form clears their input and displays a general error.

This description gives the team something concrete to investigate. It also separates several questions that a vague finding would hide:

 

• Does the field explain its requirements?

 

• Does the error identify the problem?

 

• Is the user’s input preserved?

 

• Can the user correct the mistake without starting again?

 

Document each finding with a screenshot, a description of the affected task, and a proposed direction for improvement. Keep observations separate from assumptions about their impact.

 

You may observe that a button lacks a clear label. Whether that causes users to abandon the task requires further evidence.

 

What UX problems look like in practice

The following examples come from Onix’s independent teardowns of publicly available products.

They were self-directed reviews, rather than commissioned client projects. The recommendations illustrate opportunities to investigate; they do not represent measured results after implementation.

 

Podcastor: helping users understand the creation sequence

 

Podcastor combines several activities in one workspace, including script preparation, voice selection, and audio and video generation.

 

In the Podcastor teardown, Onix identified that the relationship between these activities was not sufficiently clear.

The suggested improvement was a compact indicator showing progress and the next recommended action.

 

This illustrates a useful review question: Can users understand how the available controls connect to their goal?

A flexible workspace may support experienced users while leaving beginners uncertain.

Before adding more instructions, examine whether the interface makes the sequence visible.

 

Canary: reducing the work required before the first lesson

 

In the Canary teardown, Onix identified promotional screens and personalization questions before the core learning experience. The review suggested bringing learning forward and making it easier for returning users to resume.

 

The practical question is: What must users provide before they receive value?

Some setup may be necessary. Other questions could be optional or asked later.

 

Reviewing that distinction can reveal opportunities to simplify onboarding without removing useful personalization.

 

How to prioritize UX audit findings

Once findings are clearly described, compare them using the same criteria. The following approach gives teams a practical starting point.

 

1. Assess the consequence for the user

What happens when someone encounters the problem?

An issue may prevent task completion, cause an error, require a workaround, or create a brief hesitation.  These consequences deserve different levels of attention.

Pay particular attention to problems involving lost work, unexpected charges, or blocked access to essential functionality.

Also consider whether the problem affects a particular group of users: an obstacle encountered by fewer people may still prevent those people from using the product entirely.

 

2. Identify who encounters it and when

A problem in a frequently used workflow has a different reach from one on a rarely visited screen.

Look beyond overall traffic. Consider the audience and the moment:

 

• Do all new users encounter this step?

 

• Does it affect people using a specific device or input method?

 

• Does it appear during a critical decision, such as payment?

 

• Does it happen repeatedly during everyday use?

 

• This helps explain why a small interface change may deserve attention ahead of a larger visual update.

 

3. Review the supporting evidence

 

Record what supports the finding.

Evidence might include usability observations, support requests, form errors, funnel data, or repeated customer feedback. Each source answers different questions.

 

A funnel can show where people leave. It usually cannot explain their reasons on its own.

A usability session can reveal how someone interprets a screen, but a small sample does not establish how often every user encounters the same difficulty.

 

When evidence is limited, make that uncertainty visible. A high-consequence issue with uncertain reach may deserve a focused investigation before a substantial redesign.

 

4. Estimate effort and dependencies

 

Discuss the proposed change with the people who will implement it.

A recommendation that appears simple may depend on product rules, backend behavior, or shared components.

Conversely, correcting a reusable component may resolve the same problem across several screens.

 

Estimate the work required to investigate, design, implement, and verify the change.

Keep effort separate from severity so that difficult problems remain visible even when they cannot be addressed immediately.

 

A practical example: choosing what to fix first

 

Imagine a SaaS team reviewing its project creation flow. The following example is illustrative, rather than a finding from the products discussed above.

 

 

 

 

Under these assumptions, preserving form input is the strongest immediate candidate: the problem is reproducible, its consequence is clear, and users have reported it.

 

The onboarding questions still deserve attention. However, removing them without understanding their purpose could introduce another problem.

A focused review can establish which information is needed immediately and which can be collected later.

 

The spacing inconsistency can remain in the backlog with a clear description. Its priority should change if further review reveals problems such as difficult touch targets or accidental selections.

The value of this exercise is the explanation behind the order. Everyone should understand why one issue comes before another.

 

Turn recommendations into work your team can act on

 

A recommendation needs enough detail to guide implementation and verification.

“Improve form errors” is a direction. A task ready for development should describe the expected behavior.

 

For example:

Problem: Users lose their input after a failed submission.

Expected behavior: The form preserves entered values, identifies the fields requiring correction, and explains how to resolve each error.

 

Acceptance criteria:

 

• Valid entries remain populated after an unsuccessful submission.

 

• Each invalid field has a specific, readable error message.

 

• Users can correct the affected fields and submit again.

 

• Keyboard users can locate and resolve the errors.

 

Include the original finding and visual context so the team understands the purpose of the change.

During implementation, that context helps resolve questions the acceptance criteria may not anticipate.

 

Decide how you will evaluate the change

 

Choose a measure connected to the affected task before releasing the improvement.

For onboarding, you might track the proportion of new users reaching the first core action.

For a form, you might examine successful submissions after an error. 

For a creation workflow, you could assess whether users finish the task with less assistance.

 

Record the starting point and define the events consistently. If the task includes people who abandon it, avoid evaluating completion time only among those who succeed.

 

Where feasible, combine product data with direct observation. Numbers can indicate a change in behavior; watching users attempt the task can help explain it.

 

Avoid treating every post-release increase as proof that the design caused it. Changes in traffic, acquisition channels, or other product features may also affect results.

Onix’s guide to measuring UI and UX performance explores relevant metrics in more detail.

 

Use a UX audit to build a focused improvement plan

 

A useful audit should help your team move from a broad concern to a specific decision.

Start with an important user task. Describe the obstacles clearly. Compare their consequences, reach, supporting evidence, and implementation effort.

Then select a manageable set of changes and decide how you will evaluate them.

 

If your team needs an outside perspective, UX Audit by Onix offers a free initial review of a website, app, or design.

 

The service includes a PDF report and a 30-minute discussion, with preparation advertised within one business day. Further implementation work is optional and quoted separately.

Book your free UX audit to identify specific usability issues and discuss where your team could begin.