UX audit for websites and apps in Mykolaiv

UX audit in Mykolaiv — how to find the points of revenue loss inside your website, e-commerce or B2B portal

If you're reading this page, you most likely already have a working website, online store, B2B portal or mobile app, but the metrics aren't encouraging: traffic comes in, requests don't; an EU buyer adds a sunflower-oil batch to the cart but never reaches the export-contract signature; a new user signs up to your SaaS for port brokers but doesn't come back the next day. You sense the problem is somewhere inside the product — but can't pinpoint exactly where. A UX audit is a systematic investigation that answers that question with data, not guesses. I'm Alex Filiuk, Senior UI/UX designer with 15+ years of practice, running UX audits for businesses in Mykolaiv and the Mykolaiv region, and for clients from Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, the US and Europe. The portfolio holds over 130 projects, a large share of which started with a UX analysis of an existing product before the redesign.

This page goes through, in detail: what a UX audit really is (and what only pretends to be one), which blocks it consists of, which methods I use, which typical findings appear in Mykolaiv agro-exporters, port services and shipbuilding contractors, how much it costs, and how to choose the right specialist. No filler, no marketing promises — only working material that helps you make a decision.

Why high-quality UX is critical for a Mykolaiv business

Mykolaiv is a city of about 470,000 with a powerful export-and-logistics core: Nibulon-scale grain traders, port operators, Sandora-segment wineries, contractors of the Black Sea Shipbuilding Plant and the "61 Komunara" yard. Digital competition here grows not only from local players but also from international B2B platforms entering the Ukrainian agri-market. Ten years ago "having a website" was enough — today it doesn't solve anything. Every competitor, from a Mykolaiv online store to a global trader, fights for the buyer's attention in the first 5–10 seconds after the page loads. UX is not "a pretty picture" — it's the science of how a person thinks, navigates and decides on a USD 50,000 contract.

For a Mykolaiv business UX has three applied consequences:

• Conversion. Bad UX cuts conversion rate by 2–5×. If you have 1,000 visitors from a Google Ads campaign on "bulk sunflower oil purchase", you get 10 requests instead of 30–50. Across a month of export traffic, that's tens of thousands of dollars in lost contracts.
• Acquisition cost. If you run Google Ads or SEO, every click is paid. A bad landing equals pouring budget into the Buh estuary — there is traffic, but no conversion.
• Retention and repeat visits. Especially for SaaS and e-commerce: a user who hits friction the first time is 60–70% likely never to return. The audit finds that friction before you lose the cohort of export buyers.

How a UX audit differs from a "design review"

The Ukrainian market (including Mykolaiv) often confuses two different products: a UX audit and a design review. They are not the same.

• A design review is a subjective look at aesthetics: "the font is too small", "these colours don't match". May be useful, but not systematic.
• A UX audit is a structured method with concrete frameworks validated by the industry over decades. Each finding is grounded either in a standard (Nielsen's 10 heuristics, WCAG 2.2, Material Design Guidelines, Apple HIG) or in data (Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity, GA4, Search Console).

The difference is critical: a design review delivers 50 scattered comments, 30 of which are taste. A UX audit delivers 50–150 findings with prioritisation, links to standards and an estimate of business impact. The first you can "listen and forget"; the second is your action plan for the next 3 months.

The blocks a UX audit consists of

Every audit I run is 6 parallel blocks, merged into a single report. None of them gives the full picture alone — only together they produce a reliable result.

1. Heuristic evaluation by Jakob Nielsen. Reviewing the product against 10 heuristics: visibility of system status, match with the real world, user control and freedom, consistency and standards, error prevention, recognition over recall, flexibility and efficiency, aesthetic and minimalist design, help users recognise and recover from errors, help and documentation. Each finding comes with a screenshot, problem description and severity rating.
2. Accessibility audit against WCAG 2.2. Four principles (perceivable, operable, understandable, robust), AA level. Checking contrasts, alt texts, keyboard navigation, focus states, ARIA attributes, HTML semantics. Especially important for Mykolaiv exporters targeting EU/US markets with mandatory ADA and European Accessibility Act 2025 requirements.
3. Walkthrough of target scenarios. I walk through 3–7 key scenarios from the perspective of different personas: a new EU export buyer, a returning B2B client, a mobile user inside the port, a regional wholesaler from Ochakiv or Voznesensk. I record every friction — from a micro-delay to a real drop-off.
4. Quantitative data analysis. Hotjar / Microsoft Clarity provide real session recordings, heatmaps, rage clicks, dead clicks. GA4 shows funnels and drop-offs. Search Console shows real search queries and CTR. This block gives the actual behaviour picture, not the hypothetical one.
5. Competitive analysis. I look at 3–5 competitors — local from Mykolaiv (agro-exporters, port services, wineries), national, and international (Cargill, Bunge, ADM for agri; Maersk, MSC for logistics). Not for copying, but to identify the user's industry expectations (so-called UX conventions).
6. Stakeholder interviews. Where available — a short conversation with your marketer, export manager, support service, operations director. Often support knows where the user pains are better than any analytics.

Typical findings in Mykolaiv businesses

Over years of practice I've assembled a recurring "problem map" specific to the Ukrainian and especially the Mykolaiv market. Here are the top 10 findings I encounter in 80% of projects:

• An overloaded first screen. An exporter's site tries to say everything at once — sunflower oil, grain, meal, logistics. The user can't understand within 5 seconds what you do and why it matters.
• An unclear primary CTA. 3–5 buttons — "Request a quote", "Learn more", "Buy", "Submit request" — with the same visual weight; the foreign buyer gets lost.
• Forms with 8–12 fields where 3 would do. Each extra field cuts form conversion by 5–10%. On Mykolaiv sites the classic is a "Quote request" form with a "CEO date of birth" field.
• No empty, error or loading states. The user clicks "Calculate freight" — and can't tell whether it worked, hung, or needs another click.
• Mobile = desktop under a magnifying glass. On the Mykolaiv market this hurts most for port inspectors and logisticians working from a phone in patchy 4G zones. Touch zones too small, vertical text, broken forms.
• A non-transparent cart. A winery or fish-products online store doesn't show shipping cost within Mykolaiv, across Ukraine, for export, payment methods — the user fears a surprise and abandons.
• 3:1 contrast instead of 4.5:1. Text in a "nice grey" is unreadable for 15% of your audience — a WCAG AA failure and a blocker for EU export.
• No 404 or fallback states. The user clicks a broken link and lands on the browser default page. Visit lost, trust lost.
• No onboarding. A SaaS for port brokers drops a new user into an empty dashboard with 50 options. Time to first value — endless.
• Analytics set up "theoretically". No custom events, no conversion goals, GA4 only shows page views — but you need to know how many people reach step 3 of 5 in an export-quote request.

This doesn't mean your site has all 10. But 5–7 of them is the typical picture, even for well-built products. The audit not only delivers the list but also the order of fixes by business impact.

Regional context: Mykolaiv, Ochakiv, Voznesensk, Pervomaisk and the export tail

The Mykolaiv region isn't just the city itself. It serves the coastal economy of Ochakiv (hotels, restaurants, charters, excursion platforms toward the Tyliguly Liman), the agro-industrial belt of Voznesensk and Pervomaisk (mid-scale grain traders, oil mills, sunflower processing), and logistics hubs along the M-14 and E-58 highways. A UX audit for a business from a regional centre (a hotel operator from Ochakiv or a grain exporter from Bashtanka) must factor in the specifics: seasonality (tourism — May–September, agri — August–November), export cycle (CIF/FOB configurators, Incoterms, multi-currency pricing), language versions (Ukrainian as the base, English for EU/US, sometimes Polish for transit export).

For businesses inside the Mykolaiv port and adjacent service companies the critical accent is mobile-offline: terminal workers, tally clerks and inspectors are often in patchy mobile zones, and the app must run from cache and sync later. This scenario must be tested not in the office but on the actual site.

How the process looks — step by step

1. Week 1, days 1–2. Free preliminary call (60 min, video format). We discuss context: what kind of business, the goals, the audience (Mykolaiv local, region, Ukraine, export), what you've tried before.
2. Week 1, days 3–5. Access to GA4, Hotjar/Clarity, Search Console. If something isn't set up — I help install it (Microsoft Clarity is free and takes 30 minutes).
3. Week 2. Heuristic evaluation, accessibility, session recording analysis. I keep a live document in Notion where findings are logged. You have access and see the process.
4. Week 3. Scenario walkthroughs, GA4 funnel analysis, competitive analysis. Forming the top findings.
5. Week 4. Prioritisation via ICE / RICE, building the roadmap, packaging the final report.
6. Presentation and workshop. 2–3 hours with your team in video format. We walk through the top 15 findings, agree what goes into the next sprint.

If you need it faster — there's an express format of 5–7 working days for a single landing or single user flow. Suitable when you're preparing a redesign and need a quick snapshot before kickoff.

The toolkit I work with

No audit is "magic in the designer's head". It uses a concrete stack:

• Microsoft Clarity (free) — session recordings, heatmaps, rage clicks, dead clicks. Almost no limits.
• Hotjar — Clarity counterpart with surveys and broader analytics (paid).
• GA4 / Looker Studio — quantitative data, funnels, cohorts, retention.
• Google Search Console — real search queries, CTR, positions, indexing issues.
• WAVE, axe DevTools, Lighthouse — accessibility, performance, SEO.
• Figma — annotating mockups, handing findings to designers.
• Notion / Coda — structured report, backlogs, prioritisation.
• UserZoom / Maze (when needed) — moderated usability testing with real users.

Cases: UX audits for Ukrainian and international businesses

The portfolio includes plenty of projects that started with an audit of an existing product and then progressed to redesign or CRO. Among them — consumer apps, CRM systems for the automotive business, e-commerce, medical platforms, B2B logistics services. In each case I started with mapping the current state, talking to users and the team, analysing the analytics — and only then drawing interfaces. That guaranteed the new version wasn't just "prettier" but actually performed better against concrete business indicators.

If you want examples relevant to your niche — head to the "Projects" section or get in touch via the contact form. I'll pick 5–10 most relevant cases and show exactly how the UX audit affected the metrics.

How much does a UX audit in Mykolaiv cost

The price comes from the scope of the audited object. Approximately (exact figures in the "Pricing" block):

• Basic package. Landing or business-card site of up to 10 key screens. Includes heuristic evaluation, accessibility, walkthrough of 1–2 scenarios, basic GA4/Clarity analysis, a one-month roadmap.
• Standard package. Corporate website, online store or exporter B2B portal (20–50 screens). Full audit cycle: 6 blocks, stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, team presentation, 2–3 month roadmap. The most popular format among Mykolaiv clients.
• Premium / SaaS. Complex product with multiple roles (e.g., a SaaS for port brokers with a logistician admin, an exporter account area and an inspector mobile app). Includes usability testing with real users (5–8 respondents), deeper retention/cohort analysis, a full quarterly roadmap.

If you order an audit bundled with a follow-up UI/UX implementation, development or conversion optimisation, the audit cost is fully or partially credited toward the main project. This is the most common format for Mykolaiv clients who want not just a report but immediate results.

Why it's worth running a UX audit with me, not on a marketplace

Marketplaces offer audits "for $100 in 3 days". That isn't an audit — it's a template the freelancer fills in without engaging the brain. Here are 5 reasons this path doesn't pay off for a serious Mykolaiv business:

• No context. The freelancer doesn't know your market, competitors, the specifics of the export cycle and Mykolaiv port logistics. Findings stay at "make the button blue" level.
• No depth. 3 days is physically impossible for a quality audit of anything more complex than a landing.
• No business-metric link. Findings aren't scored by impact on conversion, retention, ARPU, export-contract volume.
• No accessibility. WCAG requires expertise the templated freelancer doesn't have — and for EU export it's a blocker.
• No follow-through. Once the report is delivered, post-questions are not answered.

The alternative is me. 15+ years of practice, knowledge of Mykolaiv specifics (agro-export, port, shipbuilding, coastal hospitality), a transparent process, a guaranteed result. Pricing is competitive with the marketplace (because I don't pay platform commissions) — but the depth is on a different level.

My other services for Mykolaiv businesses

A UX audit is often the first stage of broader work. Services that logically follow or run alongside:

• UI/UX design — turning audit recommendations into a new interface version.
• Conversion optimisation — A/B testing and iterative metric improvements.
• Web development — implementing the redesign on a modern stack.
• Mobile UI/UX design — audit and redesign of iOS/Android apps.
• E-commerce — comprehensive work on the online store: from catalogue to checkout.
• CRM / ERP / SaaS design — complex internal systems with multiple roles.
• Product strategy — a deeper level for growing startups.
• Business consulting — strategy before investing in design.

UX audit in other Ukrainian cities

I work not only with Mykolaiv. If you have offices across several regions or are planning regional expansion — the approach is the same, the method is the same. Other locations:

• Kyiv — national brands, IT companies, corporate sector.
• Lviv — creative business, gastronomy, IT startups.
• Odesa — retail, tourism, e-commerce, port logistics.
• Dnipro — manufacturing, B2B, SaaS.
• Kharkiv — IT, education, engineering.
• Rivne — regional e-commerce, service B2B.

The full list of locations is on the "Service Areas" page.

Ready to discuss a UX audit of your product in Mykolaiv?

If you have a concrete request — fill in the contact form or write to me on email/Telegram (contacts in the footer). The first consultation is free and lasts up to 60 minutes. I'll pre-screen your product, ask a few diagnostic questions and tell you which audit scope you actually need — basic, standard or premium. No upselling unnecessary scope — if an express audit is enough, I'll say so plainly.

Ready to help your business in Mykolaiv and the Mykolaiv region find and fix the loss points inside your product. Not "play with colours", but raise concrete business indicators: export-request conversion, SaaS operational user retention, e-commerce ARPU, B2B client NPS. That is the work of a UX auditor who works for results.