UX Scorecards

Maintained by:

Intro and goal

The UX Scorecard is a process similar to a heuristic evaluation that helps identify usability issues and score a given experience. Using the UX Scorecard process to walk through a workflow end-to-end in critical detail enables us to quickly spot opportunities for improvement. This should be done early in the maturity of a product area and after significant changes to workflows so that we can continiously monitor our progress in making experiences better for our users.

As UX practitioners, we must think strategically about fixing usability challenges within the GitLab product in order to give our users a quality experience. Creating a UX Scorecard with associated Recommendations enables us to identify, scope, and track the effort of addressing usability concerns within a specific workflow. When it's complete, we have the information required to collaborate with Product Managers on grouping fixes into meaningful iterations and prioritizing UX-related issues.

All of the UX Scorecards can be found in this epic.

How UX Scorecards relate to Category Maturity Scorecards

When to create a UX Scorecard: Use these to quickly identify and prioritize usability issues and opportunities for improvement within an experience. Extensive testing is not required, but documenting how 3-5 internal or external users accomplish the JTBD is preferred as it will remove subjectivity. This is a process intended to help inform the design process and maintain a high bar of quality.
When to create a Category Maturity Scorecard: Use this when more rigorous testing is required within a category in relation to a set of business requirements and/or features that are needed for the category to move up. This is a summative process that allows us to gather metrics and data that will help us understand how changes to the product impact the user experience over time. We grade the maturity of our product using this process.

Setup

Below is a recommended step by step process for completing a UX Scorecard. Note that every scorecard is not the same. Product Designers are welcome to adapt the steps to their needs as long as they are as objective as possible and the spirit and outcome remains the same.

Create an epic that will contain all UX Scorecards for that stage group and fiscal quarter with the following title: UX Scorecard - {{Stage Group}} FY{{YY}}-Q{{Quarter Number}}

Example: “UX Scorecard - Create:Source Code FY21-Q1”
Add the stage group epic to the UX Scorecards – All Evaluations epic.
Work with your Product Manager to identify the top jobs (in frequency or importance) for users of your stage group. Ideally, you will base this task list on user research (analytics or qualitative findings).
Select one of the top jobs to complete a UX Scorecard.
Create an experience scoring issue, using the template “UX Scorecard Part 1”, and add it to the stage group epic.

This issue should have the UX Scorecard label. If it's related to an OKR, also apply the OKR label for easier tracking.
Create a recommendations issue, using the template “UX Scorecard Part 2”, to be done after the experience scoring.
Follow the instructions in the templates to complete the scorecard and use the Grading Rubric below.
Once you have completed the evaluation and provided your recommendations, remove the "WIP:" prefix from the issue title.

If you'd like to view or edit the templates, you can find them here:

Grading rubric

Badge	Summary	Description
	Exceeds Expectations	Experience exceeds expectations and the user feels the experience is delightful. - Ease: Extremely easy - Experience: Extremely good
	Meets Expectations	Experience is viewed as good and is easy to complete. - Ease: Easy - Experience: Good
	Average	Experience is viewed as an average experience and is also average in ease. - Ease: Neither easy or difficult - Experience: Neither good or bad
	Poor	Experience is viewed as a poor experience and is difficult to complete. - Ease: Difficult - Experience: Bad
	Terrible	Too many users are unable to complete the job. Experience is viewed as extremely bad and extremely difficult to complete. - Ease: Extremely difficult - Experience: Extremely bad
	Unknown	This job has yet to be graded. - Frustration: Unknown - Job Completion: Unknown