school_compare/docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-02-ux-audit-design.md

UX/UI Audit of SchoolCompare.co.uk — Design

Date: 2026-07-02 Status: Approved design, awaiting execution Output of execution: a prioritized audit report (this spec defines how that report is produced)

Goal

A comprehensive UX and design audit of the live site (schoolcompare.co.uk) that answers:

• (a) Can parents reach the relevant information quickly and intuitively?
• (b) Is the site visually and experientially cohesive end-to-end, not just at component level?
• (c) Does it comply with current design standards and best practices (incl. WCAG 2.2 AA)?

Every recommendation must be argued from evidence — no change for change's sake — and carry an indication of potential uplift. Primary success lens: engagement and task completion (parents who land actually reach a school page or comparison); SEO benefits noted secondarily.

Analytics baseline (30 days, informing all weighting)

• ~2.3k visitors; 87% UK; 83% Google organic.
• Devices: 56% mobile, 41% laptop, 2% desktop → mobile is the primary viewport.
• Page views: / 52%, /compare 27%, /rankings 12%, /admissions 5%, school pages a long tail (~1% each).
• Entries: / 63%, /compare 20%, /rankings 6%, individual school pages a small but real SEO tail.
• Exits: / 46% (biggest leak), /compare 32%, /rankings 13%.

Method

Environment: live production site via Playwright browser tools. Two viewports: 390×844 (mobile, weighted primary) and 1440×900 (desktop). Chrome engine (matches 41% Chrome + 11% Edge majority); iOS/WebKit-specific rendering is out of scope (cannot be emulated faithfully).

Journey-led walk-through, in traffic order:

1. Home → find my school (63% of entries; 46% of exits). Can a parent with a school name or postcode reach the right school page in under ~15 seconds? What competes for attention?
2. Google → school detail page → next step (SEO long tail). Landing cold: is site identity obvious, is performance data comprehensible to a non-specialist parent, is there a clear path to "compare with nearby schools"?
3. Building a comparison (27% of views, 32% of exits). Adding/removing schools, chart legibility on mobile, metric comprehension.
4. Rankings → shortlist (12% of views). Filtering by local authority, scanning, jumping to school pages.
5. Admissions content (5% — light pass, mainly cohesion with the rest of the site).

Per journey, record: friction points with screenshot evidence; what works well (explicitly kept); axe-core accessibility scan of each page state visited.

Cross-cutting cohesion pass (after journeys): typography scale, spacing rhythm, colour usage, component variants (buttons, chips, cards, nav, empty/loading states) compared across pages; consistency check of recent additions (map-blended hero, characteristic chips, admissions cross-links).

Evaluation criteria

A finding is valid only if it cites at least one of:

• a violated usability heuristic (Nielsen/NN-g),
• a WCAG 2.2 AA failure (axe result or manual check: contrast, touch targets ≥24px, keyboard/focus, labels),
• a mobile-usability standard,
• a concrete task-flow obstruction observed in the walk-through.

No "I'd prefer it differently" findings. Each finding: evidence → argument (why it hurts parents) → recommendation.

Prioritization

Scored on traffic-weighted impact × severity:

• P0 Urgent — blocks or badly degrades a core task on a high-traffic path, or a clear WCAG failure on a main page.
• P1 High — meaningful friction on a main journey; strong expected funnel uplift.
• P2 Medium — cohesion/polish issues that erode trust but don't block tasks.
• P3 Nice-to-have — low-traffic pages or marginal refinements.

Uplift indication per finding: which analytics number it should move (e.g. "home 46% exit rate", "share of sessions reaching a school page"), direction, and a magnitude band (small/moderate/large) with reasoning. Honest bands, not invented percentages — there is no baseline funnel instrumentation.

Deliverable

One audit report at docs/superpowers/specs/2026-07-02-ux-audit-report.md containing:

1. Method summary.
2. "What works today — keep" list.
3. Findings grouped by tier (P0–P3), each with evidence, argument, recommendation, uplift indication.
4. Suggested implementation sequence grouping related fixes.

The report is the plan requested. Implementation of any fixes is a separate follow-up with its own plan.

Out of scope

• Performance/Core Web Vitals auditing (explicitly excluded by choice of scope).
• iOS/Safari-specific rendering verification.
• Changes to data content or backend behaviour.
• Actually implementing fixes.