Website design review: score your own site in 30 minutes

Key takeaways

A website design review is a structured check of whether your site's design helps visitors read, find, trust and act. You can do a useful one yourself in about 30 minutes with the GBL Design Mistake Scorecard: five lines scored 0 to 2, out of 10. The score tells you where to start, not just whether the site looks good.

• Five lines: read, find, trust, act and work, each scored 0, 1 or 2.
• 8–10 is sound; 5–7 fix the weakest line; 4 or below start with read and act.
• Review the homepage, your best service page and the contact page.
• Check on a phone first: most small business visits are mobile.

What is a website design review?

A website design review is an evaluation of a site's visual design, layout and interactions against what visitors need to do, not against personal taste. It asks whether the text is readable, the structure findable, the look credible, the next step obvious and the site usable on every device and by every visitor.

It is narrower than a full website audit, which also covers speed, search, security and tracking, and narrower than a conversion audit, which follows the whole route to an enquiry.

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• Run a website conversion audit in one afternoon

How does the GBL Design Mistake Scorecard work?

The GBL Design Mistake Scorecard scores five lines from 0 to 2. Score 0 if the line is broken, 1 if it works with effort and 2 if it works well. Add the five scores for a total out of 10. Be strict: if you have to explain how something works, it scores 1 at most.

• Read: body text is at least 16px, contrast passes 4.5:1, lines are not too long, and no key words are trapped in images.
• Find: the main menu has plain labels, services are one click from the homepage, and the footer and 404 page offer a way forward.
• Trust: the design looks current and consistent, the photos are real, and the logo and brand colours match across pages.
• Act: one main button per screen that looks clickable, contact details in the header, and a short form with visible labels.
• Work: the site works on a phone, in Safari and Chrome, with a keyboard, and without autoplay or pop-ups getting in the way.

What do the scores mean?

A total of 8 to 10 means the design is sound: keep it and fix the odd detail. 5 to 7 means one or two lines are leaking visitors; fix the weakest line first. 4 or below means visitors are struggling to read or act, so fix those two lines before any visual work, because polish cannot rescue an unreadable page.

A low score on one line is more useful than the total. A site scoring 2, 2, 2, 0, 2 has one clear job to do: fix the next step.

• Prioritise website changes by impact, not opinion

How do you run the review in 30 minutes?

Spend about ten minutes per page on three pages: the homepage, your most important service or product page, and the contact page. Open each on your phone first, then on a laptop. Score as you go, and note the single worst example for each line.

• Open the page on your phone and read the first screen aloud. Note anything you squint at.
• Try to reach a specific service in two taps without the search box.
• Find the phone number or WhatsApp without scrolling.
• Fill in the form with one deliberate mistake and read the error message.
• Press Tab through the page on a laptop and check you can see where you are.
• Run a free contrast checker on the body text and the main button.

• Website typography mistakes that make pages hard to read
• Keyboard accessibility: can your site work without a mouse?

What tools help with a design review?

You need very little. A contrast checker, your own phone, a laptop with Safari or Chrome and the keyboard are enough for the scorecard. The W3C's Easy Checks guide walks through basic accessibility checks anyone can do, and free automated tools such as WAVE flag missing labels and alt text.

Automated tools catch only some problems. WebAIM notes that the absence of detected errors does not mean a page is accessible, so pair them with real people.

• Website accessibility for UK businesses

Should you test with real visitors as well?

Yes, if you can. Your own review is biased because you know where everything is. Ask five people who match your customers to find a service and contact you while you watch in silence. Nielsen Norman Group's research suggests five users find most usability problems in a simple test. Where they hesitate, your score was too generous.

• User testing for small business websites

What are the limits of a self-review?

A self-review is quick, but it will not catch everything. It misses problems you cannot see on your own devices, accessibility faults that need a screen reader to find, and the business questions behind the design, such as whether the offer is clear. Treat it as a first pass that tells you where to look, not a certificate.

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: an owner scores their own site 8 out of 10, then watches a customer search for the phone number for over a minute. The act line drops to 0 and the total to 6. That single observation usually does more to focus the work than any amount of debate about colours.

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Design review checklist

• Pick three pages: home, best service page, contact.
• Score read, find, trust, act and work from 0 to 2 each.
• Note the worst example on each line.
• Check contrast and keyboard focus with free tools.
• Watch five people try one task.
• Fix the weakest line first, then re-score.

Next step

Book 30 minutes in your diary this week, score the three pages and write down the weakest line.