Capture
Three viewports, rendered
The page is loaded and photographed at desktop, tablet, and mobile widths. Judgements come from what a visitor actually sees rendered — not from markup, and not from a description of the page.
Methodology
Where the number comes from.
Every claim in a UX Signal report is tied to something observed on the page. This is the whole procedure, including what it deliberately refuses to do.
01 / The procedure
Review
56 weighted heuristics
Each capture is checked against the heuristic set for that experience type, weighted by how much the category moves a first impression. An e-commerce page is not scored on the same rules as a marketing site, and a logged-in product carries a rubric of its own.
Score
Deductions, counted once
The score starts at 100. Every confirmed issue deducts its points once, at its root cause, so a single problem appearing in three places is charged once rather than three times.
Evidence
Unproven claims do not count
Findings without evidence are recorded but never scored. Strengths and manual checks appear throughout for context and cannot raise the number.
02 / The scoring model
A score is 100 minus what the issues cost.
Not an average of category grades, and not a model's opinion of your site. Each confirmed issue carries a point value; the report shows exactly which categories those points came from, and they add back up to the difference between your score and 100.
Starting score100
Confirmed issues− points
Signal scorewhat remains
03 / The data so far
What the audits we run actually find.
572 pages auditedmedian score 7129% score 80 or above
Score distribution
Every completed page audit, bucketed by Signal score. No domains, no names — counts only, updated live from the same table your report is written to.
Where the web loses points
Mean stored score per category across every audit, worst first — the categories at the top are where the sites we scan are weakest today.
First purchase experience86
Checkout friction88
Task & workflow efficiency92
Form & error UX93
Lead generation friction94
Clarity & messaging94
Visual hierarchy / First impression96
Accessibility96
Trust & credibility97
Content & copy quality97
Clarity & microcopy98
Scanability & hierarchy98
SEO-UX signals98
Navigation98
System feedback & recovery99
Performance99
Onboarding & empty states100
Mobile experience100
04 / The rubric, live
Weights move with the kind of site you are.
Checkout friction is life or death for a store and irrelevant to a marketing site. Pick an experience type and watch the ten categories re-rank by the weight the audit will actually apply.
Category weights · Marketing site
Clarity & Messaging15%
Navigation15%
Visual Hierarchy / First Impression10%
Lead Generation Friction10%
Content & Copy Quality10%
Trust & Credibility10%
Accessibility10%
Mobile Experience10%
SEO-UX Signals5%
Performance5%
Rendered from the same configuration the scoring pipeline reads — this table cannot drift from what actually runs.
05 / Where the rubric comes from
Established UX canon, made checkable.
The 56 heuristics are not invented opinions. Each one operationalizes a principle the field already agrees on into a failure you can point at on a rendered page.
01
Usability heuristics
The Nielsen tradition — hierarchy, navigation as a map, matching the reader’s language, errors that explain their own fix — made checkable on a rendered page.
02
Accessibility fundamentals
WCAG-derived basics: 4.5:1 contrast, accessible names on controls, meaningful alt text. We check the fundamentals; we do not certify conformance.
03
Interaction norms
The mobile ground rules platforms converged on — 44px tap targets, no horizontal scroll, layouts designed for phones rather than surviving them.
04
Conversion research
What checkout and form studies keep re-finding: surprise costs abandon carts, account walls tax first purchases, every needless field loses someone.
The reasoning engine is a general model — Claude — but the judgement is this rubric, enforced by scoring code that only lets evidence-backed findings move the number. Every Pro and Team report also carries an unscored “How AI reads your site” section: the same machine-readability lens, turned on your page.
06 / What this does not claim
A method is only credible if it names its own edges.
- Behind-login audits only ever use access you explicitly grant — a one-run credential you provide, or screens you capture yourself. We never probe past a login on our own.
- A score is a first-impression measure, not a usability study. It cannot tell you what your particular customers will do.
- We do not compare you to an industry benchmark, because we do not have honest data for one yet.