Your list of website changes keeps growing. Start with what stops a visitor understanding, finding or contacting you, then rank the rest in four groups.
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GrokThe list lives in your notes app and keeps getting longer. A new font. A darker green. A moving headline like the one on a competitor's site. Somewhere in the middle, almost as an afterthought: "booking button does nothing on my phone?"
Every item sounds reasonable, and someone on your team cares about each one. So nothing moves. A first review should tell you which items cost you customers and which only change how the site looks.
What should a first website review establish?
A first review checks whether the site does its basic job before it judges the design.
A first website review should establish whether a visitor can understand what you offer, find what they came for and contact you, and whether that contact actually reaches you. Only then does it sort the rest of the list into broken and cosmetic.
You can run a first pass yourself on your own phone, with no tools and no technical knowledge.
| Question | How to check it yourself | A fail looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Can a stranger tell what you offer? | Show the top of your homepage to someone outside the business and ask what you do | They describe a different business |
| Can they find what they came for? | Find your prices, areas served or opening hours on a phone | A long hunt, or you give up |
| Can they contact you? | Tap every call, email, WhatsApp and booking button, then send the form | Nothing happens, or the wrong number dials |
| Does the enquiry reach you? | Look for your test where your team actually checks | "Message sent" on screen, nothing on your side |
| Can they buy? | For a shop, use its test mode, or place a small order and refund it | A step fails or no confirmation arrives |
Write down every fail, with the page and the phone you used. Those go to the top of your list. Our guides to forms that don't deliver and buttons that do nothing help you find where a failure starts.
Why does a broken form come before a new font?
A broken customer action loses every person who reaches it, and it does so quietly.
A dated font might make some visitors trust you a little less. A form that says "Message sent" and delivers nothing loses the person who was already convinced. You won't get a complaint. You'll get a quiet month.
Nielsen Norman Group's severity scale for usability problems weighs how often a problem happens, how hard it is to get past and whether it keeps happening. On that scale, a cosmetic problem "need not be fixed unless extra time is available".
Ask the same three things about each item on your list:
- How many people meet it? A fault on your contact page reaches more buyers than one on an old blog post.
- Can they get past it? An awkward menu is annoying. A booking button that does nothing is a dead end.
- Does it happen every time? A form that fails for everyone outranks a glitch in one old browser.
Order matters for another reason. Polish the homepage first and you may send more people to a contact page that still fails.
How do you rank your own list?
Put every item into one of four groups, then work from the top group down.
| Group | What it means | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Broken | A customer action fails or sends people the wrong way | Form that doesn't deliver, wrong phone number, old prices |
| Blocked | The action works, but visitors can't reach or use it | Cookie banner over the call button, text too faint to read |
| Unclear | Visitors can't tell if you're right for them | Vague headline, no areas served, no past work shown |
| Cosmetic | Taste and brand polish | New font, another shade of green, animations |
Broken items get fixed before anything else starts. Blocked items come next, because the action already works and the fix is often small. Unclear items usually mean rewriting a page, and sometimes rethinking which pages you have. Cosmetic items wait, which says nothing about whether they matter to you.
Not sure where something belongs? Ask: "If this stayed as it is for a month, what would a customer fail to do?" If the answer is "nothing", it's cosmetic. If it fits two groups, use the higher one.
Inside a group, start with the pages people see. In Google Analytics, open Reports, then Engagement, then Pages and screens to find your most-viewed pages.
When does a cosmetic change move up the list?
Some requests sound like taste and turn out to stop people.
"Make the text darker" sounds cosmetic. If light grey text is hard to read on a phone outdoors, visitors can't read your offer, and that's a blocked item. Our guide to text that's hard to read shows how to check. A button that blends into the background is the same: the request says "colour", the problem is that people can't find it.
Out-of-date details move up too. A team member who left, a service you dropped or last year's prices can send a customer the wrong way. That makes them broken, even if the fix is a text change.
A hypothetical example: a dental clinic's list has 30 items, and the owner's top three are a new palette, a moving headline and a different font. The checks show that "Book an appointment" opens nothing on a phone, the footer phone number is missing a digit and the price list shows old fees. Those three go first. The palette waits.
A pile of cosmetic requests can point to something bigger. If half the list says the site looks dated or inconsistent, that's a redesign decision, better made once than one colour at a time. Motion gets the same test: what does it help a visitor do? See whether your site needs animations.
If your list mixes broken buttons with brand wishes, we can help you sort it and then work through it. Our $150 website audit reviews what visitors see (design, UX, speed, copy and SEO) and returns a report with annotated screenshots and a prioritised list; it isn't a repair or a technical diagnosis of forms or code. Repairs on custom-coded sites are quoted by how serious the problem is. We can fix a Framer site too, though we'd recommend moving it to custom code; for Webflow or another builder, we'd talk about a rebuild. Book a free intro call that commits you to nothing, or write to hi@aruno.studio, WhatsApp or Telegram @mihaipostelnicu.
What should you send whoever fixes it?
Send the sorted list, not the raw one.
Someone handed 30 equal requests will start with the quickest or the most interesting. Give them the order and the evidence. For each broken or blocked item, say the page, the device, what you did and what happened:
Hi, I've sorted our website changes by priority. Please start with the first group and tell me what each fix involves before you begin.
Broken: On [page], on my [phone], I tapped [button]. I expected [result]. Instead, [what happened]. Tested [date and time].
Unclear and cosmetic items are listed below for later. Please leave them until the first groups are fixed and I've retested.
Every item comes with a test anyone can repeat and a finish line you can check. When you reach the cosmetic group, our design feedback guide shows how to name the real problem.
How do you know the list is working?
Repeat the same checks after every fix, not only at the end.
When a broken item is marked done, run the test that found it: same page, same phone, a fresh test message. A fix counts when the enquiry or booking arrives where your team looks, not when someone says it's live. Tap the other contact routes too, because a change in one place can break another.
New requests will keep coming. Sort each one into a group the day it arrives, and move down a group only when the one above it is empty.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a website review cost? Running the checks in this article costs only your time. Our audit costs $150 and covers design, UX, speed, copy and SEO; repairs to anything a review finds are quoted separately.
How long does a website review take? Your own first pass covers a handful of pages and buttons, so on a small site it's hours rather than days. Our audit report arrives within 3 business days of payment.
Should I redesign the whole site instead of fixing items one by one? Only if the review points to a site-wide problem, such as an offer nobody understands. Fix broken actions first either way: a redesign takes time, and enquiries lost in the meantime don't come back.
Can I make cosmetic changes myself while broken items are being fixed? Yes, if your website editor allows it, but stay off the pages being repaired. When two people change one page at once, it's hard to tell whose change caused a new problem.
Do I need Google Analytics to prioritise website changes? No. The first checks are done by hand on a phone. Analytics helps you choose between two items in the same group.
Open the list in your notes app and mark the item that stops a customer. That's your first job, even if it's the least exciting line on it.
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