Improve your design process with these five UX deliverables

You may have the best product website with all the necessary features, but without a captivating UX design, it could be extremely challenging to realize your goals. UX is comparable to an engine that drives traffic and optimizes conversion.

As a designer, it’s critical to implement an effective design process that captures different product development stages. And what a better way to achieve that feat than to leverage UX deliverables to improve the design process?

Here are five standard UX deliverables that your clients expect to see in their website design:

Business goals and technical specifications

Any UX design process begins with understanding the product’s intent; that is, why does it exist in the first place? This deliverable should capture the problem under review, the suggested solutions, and a broad description of the target market.

Further, it should outline the delivery channels as well as a light touch on the technical strategies by which the product delivery will happen.

Personas

Sometimes, making clients or stakeholders understand what customers expect of their products may be challenging without a relatable situation. That’s why UX designers create personas (fictional characters representing the product’s real-life users) to display user behavior patterns and conduct more user research. 

Depending on the scope of particular projects, UX designers usually generate different personas capturing varying audience characteristics. These personas are vital UX deliverables as they help you empathize with the end-users by understanding who they are and what they’re seeking from the product. 

Competitive analysis

When designing a new product, it’s critical to confirm that it’s a good fit for the market. As a UX designer, your next assignment is to determine whether the product has a competitive edge over similar products in the market.

A proper competitive analysis entails marking your competitors, gauging their strategies, and assessing their strengths and weaknesses compared to your own. 

Sitemap

A great way to set your web design process up for success is by creating a visual representation of it before you can start the design process. This is where a visual sitemap comes in

This UX deliverable helps you gather content, organize and label web components, and generate your site’s information architecture. Besides, sitemaps form the foundation for developing taxonomy and user interface.

Finally, they may come in handy during latter stages of product development. Use them as references for making adjustments as the product evolves after sequential user testing.

Usability report

Another important UX deliverable you should optimize in your design process is the usability report. After completing your design, you want to run some tests on real users to get honest feedback.

Usability tests reveal whether your target customers are experiencing problems while using the product. It’s mostly conducted during prototyping but it is not uncommon to test your product with users to see if there’s room for adjustments.

Conclusion

As a UX designer, it is your responsibility to leverage these deliverables to empower owners/companies to develop products or services with a touch of human needs, behavior, motivations, and expectations. Treat each of them as undisputable means of selling your data-proven ideas to your clients.

Have you used any of these deliverables in your design process before? How did they work for you? Share your thoughts in the comments below.