UX Audit in San Francisco, USA

UX Audit in San Francisco, USA — UX audit that converts Bay Area users into customers

Today, having UX audits isn't enough for a San Francisco business. Your potential client opens a smartphone on BART, sees three or four similar offers, and decides in 5 seconds which one to engage. If yours is slow, unclear on mobile, or doesn't render correctly under iOS Safari with intermittent BART connectivity — you've lost that customer before they finished reading your headline. That's why investing in quality UX audit isn't a "luxury expense", it's a direct investment in revenue.

I'm Alex Filiuk, a Senior practitioner with 15 years of experience and a portfolio of 130+ projects. I deliver UX audits for businesses in San Francisco, across the US (San Francisco, LA, Boston, Austin), in Europe (London, Manchester, Edinburgh), and in Ukraine. On this page I've collected what's worth knowing for an Bay Area business owner before commissioning ux audit: how the engagement works, USD pricing brackets, which mistakes destroy ROI, and which 2025-2026 trends actually matter for the Bay Area market.

Why ux audit matters for San Francisco businesses

For Bay Area operators with existing digital products, a UX audit is the highest-leverage 2–3-week investment available. It surfaces 30–80 specific issues in your existing site or app — many of which can be fixed in days, recovering double-digit conversion-rate uplift without a single line of new design. Ahead of a redesign, ahead of a fundraise, ahead of peak season — a UX audit clarifies what's actually broken vs what only feels broken.

What quality UX audit delivers for an Bay Area business:

• Direct conversion-rate recovery. Most Bay Area sites have 5–15 high-impact UX issues that, once fixed, lift conversion 10–25% without any redesign.
• De-risked redesign decision. Pre-redesign audit clarifies whether you need a full rebuild or just targeted fixes — saves 5–6 figures of misspent budget.
• Investor diligence ammunition. Audit findings + plan-of-attack signals to investors that the team is rigorous about user experience.
• Cross-team alignment. Audit becomes a shared artifact across design, engineering, growth, support — same priorities for everyone.
• Compliance check. Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA, ADA, NY State requirements) audited as part of the UX review — no surprise lawsuits.

UX audit vs the templated approach

Naive UX audits are 'a designer reviews the site and writes opinions in a Doc'. That's a critique, not an audit. Real UX audits combine multiple data sources — quantitative analytics, qualitative session recordings, expert heuristic review, user research, accessibility testing — to produce evidence-backed recommendations with prioritization.

A real SF-grade UX audit covers:

• Quantitative analytics review. GA4 funnel exploration, segmented by device / source / SF-vs-rest-of-US, drop-off points quantified.
• Qualitative session review. Hotjar / Microsoft Clarity / FullStory session recordings, scroll maps, rage-click tracking.
• Heuristic expert review. Nielsen heuristics applied across 10 dimensions — usability, accessibility, mobile, performance, findability.
• Accessibility audit. WCAG 2.2 AA, ADA, NY State compliance check — automated (axe / Lighthouse) and manual.
• Findings prioritization. Impact / Effort / Confidence scoring, with implementation specs for top recommendations.

If the audit reveals fundamental problems, the natural next step is UI/UX design for a full redesign or CRO for iterative test-driven improvements.

Project types most-requested by Bay Area clients

Across 15 years and 130+ projects, I've noticed Bay Area business categories have their own digital signature. Most-common requests for UX audit:

• DTC e-commerce stores plateauing. Oakland / Marina brands at $3–8M ARR with conversion stuck — audit pinpoints checkout / PDP issues.
• B2B SaaS pre-Series-A. SoMa / Mission Bay SaaS preparing for fundraise — audit signals product-rigor to investors.
• Fintech compliance + UX. the Mission / FiDi fintechs needing accessibility (ADA), trust-signal, and KYC-flow audit.
• Pre-redesign clarity. SoMa media / publishers / Bay Area service businesses considering full rebuild — audit clarifies redesign scope.
• Mobile-app UX audit. Bay Area consumer apps with retention drop-off — audit surfaces onboarding and first-session issues.
• Internal-tool UX audit. Bay Area enterprise teams auditing internal admin / ops dashboards for productivity drag.

Different category, different approach — so I don't ship templates. Every engagement starts with discovery against your actual Bay Area market context.

The UX audit engagement, step by step

I work via a transparent process that 130+ clients have completed end-to-end. Each phase has a fixed deliverable that you receive in your hands. No "wait a month while I design" — you know what's happening every week, with weekly Slack updates and one Zoom sync at 8am Bay Area / 3pm Kyiv.

1. Intake (week 1). Goals, target audiences, key flows, business KPIs, access setup (GA4 / Hotjar / admin / staging).
2. Quantitative analysis (week 1). GA4 funnel exploration, segmented analysis, conversion / drop-off / engagement-time mapping.
3. Qualitative analysis (week 1–2). 30–50 session recordings reviewed across device / source / outcome buckets, themed.
4. Heuristic review (week 2). 10-dimension review (usability, accessibility, mobile, performance, findability, content, trust, errors, microcopy, onboarding).
5. Accessibility audit (week 2). Automated (axe-core / Lighthouse) + manual keyboard-navigation + screen-reader (VoiceOver / NVDA) testing.
6. Synthesis and prioritization (week 2–3). Findings deduplicated, ICE-scored, top recommendations with implementation specs.
7. Presentation and Q&A (week 3). 90-minute presentation + write-up + 30-day follow-up support.

What you receive when the UX audit project completes

• Audit report (40–80 pages): findings, evidence, recommendations, prioritization.
• Quantitative analysis: funnel breakdown, segment analysis, conversion / drop-off mapping.
• Qualitative synthesis: top themes from session recordings, with screenshots and timestamps.
• Heuristic findings: 30–80 issues across 10 dimensions, each with severity rating.
• Accessibility report: WCAG 2.2 AA / ADA compliance status, gaps, fix specs.
• Prioritization matrix: ICE-scored backlog, sequenced for implementation.
• Implementation specs: top 10–15 recommendations with screenshots, fix-spec, engineering notes.
• Presentation deck for stakeholder alignment.

Why hire a Ukraine-based Senior instead of an Bay Area agency

Bay Area has a deep pool of talent — and rates that match. A typical Senior at a SoMa agency: $180–280/hour. A 12-week engagement at a respectable SoMa studio: $80,000–180,000. The work is excellent, but the cost makes it inaccessible for most early-stage startups, mid-sized DTC brands, and bootstrapped B2B SaaS companies.

The remote Ukraine-Senior model gives you:

• 30–60% cost reduction. Same Senior expertise, same deliverables, transparent fixed-fee USD pricing.
• Single point of contact. No account manager, no project coordinator, no creative director "stepping in" mid-call. You talk directly with the person doing the work.
• Async-friendly cadence. The 7-hour gap (Bay Area EST → Kyiv) is a feature: I work while you sleep, you wake up to demos and questions in Slack, we sync 1× per week on Zoom.
• Production-grade quality. Same modern stack (Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind), same accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA, ADA-compliant), same handoff specs as a top-tier Bay Area agency.
• Transparent fixed pricing. No hourly invoices, no scope-creep surprises. You know the total before we start.

USD pricing model

All projects are quoted as fixed fee in USD, paid 50% upfront / 50% on delivery (or split into milestones for projects > $20K). No hourly invoices. If scope changes mid-project — we re-quote, you approve in writing, and the change is added with a clear delta.

Indicative ranges to set expectations (every quote is bespoke, but these brackets are realistic):

• UI/UX design — landing or simple website (4-6 weeks). $8,000–18,000. Bay Area agency equivalent: $30,000–80,000.
• Corporate website — full design + dev (8-12 weeks). $20,000–45,000. Bay Area agency equivalent: $80,000–250,000.
• B2B SaaS / web app — design + frontend + backend (16-28 weeks). $50,000–180,000.
• UX audit (2-3 weeks). $4,000–9,000.
• Branding — full identity system (8-12 weeks). $12,000–30,000.
• SEO retainer (3-6 months minimum). $2,500–6,000/month.
• Fractional CPO / consulting (15-20 hrs/month, 6+ months). $4,000–8,000/month.

Discounts apply when you bundle services (e.g. design + development + SEO together) — typically 15-25% vs. ordering each separately.

How the async workflow handles the timezone gap

The 7-hour difference between San Francisco (EST/EDT) and Kyiv (EET/EEST) is the biggest concern most Bay Area clients raise — and it's the easiest to solve. The honest answer: most Bay Area startup founders and product teams already work async with Slack-first cadence. The remote-Ukraine engagement just formalises what's already happening internally.

• Daily Slack handoff. When you wake up at 8am Bay Area time, I've already worked 8 hours. There's a thread in #project with the day's progress, demo link (Figma / Vercel preview), and 2-3 specific questions that need your call. You answer over coffee — by 4pm Bay Area time I'm already incorporating your feedback.
• Weekly Zoom sync. One 60-90 minute call per week, scheduled at 8am Bay Area / 3pm Kyiv. We walk through what shipped, what's next, what's blocked.
• Loom for async demos. Instead of scheduling a meeting to "show you what I built", I record a 5-10 minute walkthrough.
• Notion / Linear for tracking. Whatever you use, I'll join. No new tool to learn.
• Emergency Zoom on demand. Critical decisions get a 15-minute Zoom call within 4 hours of request, regardless of timezone.

Cases — Bay Area and US clients in my portfolio

My portfolio contains 130+ projects, including B2B SaaS for US founders, DTC brand sites for Bay Area and LA-based companies, and fintech dashboards for clients on the East Coast. For NDA reasons I can't list every client publicly — but on the discovery call I'll walk you through 5-10 most-relevant cases for your specific niche.

Other services for San Francisco businesses

• UI/UX design
• Web development
• Mobile app design
• Mobile app development
• Branding and logo design
• E-commerce
• CRM / ERP / SaaS
• SEO, Google Ads, SMM, email marketing
• UX audit, CRO
• Business consulting, product strategy

Other US and EU cities I serve

• Los Angeles — entertainment, creative agencies, e-commerce
• San Francisco / Bay Area — B2B SaaS, deep-tech, AI
• Boston — biotech, ed-tech, university spinoffs
• Austin — startups, gaming, tech
• London — fintech, B2B SaaS, creative
• Manchester — northern tech hub, sport-tech, MediaCity
• Edinburgh — fintech, ed-tech, data science

Full list of locations on the "Service Areas" page.

Ready to discuss your Bay Area project?

Fill out the contact form or message me through the channels in the footer. The first 60-90 minute call is free — we'll discuss your business, product goals, indicative scope, USD budget range, and timeline. If you have an existing site / app, I'll do a quick express-review and show you 3-5 issues that can be fixed in the first week, even before signing a full engagement.

Common mistakes Bay Area businesses make commissioning ux audit

• Hiring on hourly rate. A $25/hour practitioner in Eastern Europe is statistically a junior at best. The 30-60% cost gap with Bay Area agencies isn't from hourly rate — it's from removing layered agency overhead.
• Skipping the discovery phase to "save money". A 1-2 week paid discovery is the cheapest insurance against a $50K mistake.
• Not asking about IP and ownership. Get this in writing before kickoff.
• Underestimating the value of single-contact engagement. Talking directly to the person building your product cuts requirement-translation losses by ~40%.
• Treating ux audit as a one-off project. The strongest results come from continuous iteration, not handoff-and-forget.

2025-2026 trends I apply on Bay Area client ux audit projects

• Mobile-first audits for Bay Area traffic mix
• Accessibility audits embedded in every UX audit (ADA / WCAG 2.2 AA)
• Session recordings + heatmaps as primary evidence (not assumptions)
• Quantitative + qualitative balance in usability testing
• AI-assisted screen analysis for fast initial pattern detection
• Post-iOS 14 attribution gaps surfaced in audit findings
• ICE/PIE prioritisation for actionable roadmaps