Deliverables

Experience maps and User Journeys/Flows

An experience map is a visual representation that displays a user’s experience and flow through a service or product. Things such as their needs, desires, time spent, reactions, expectations, etc, are all things recorded here. This visual is normally displayed on a linear timeline that shows the touchpoints between the product and the user interacting with it.

On the other hand, user journeys/flows are typically based more around a series of steps that the user takes. These illustrate how the users interact with the product currently or how they may potentially interact with it in the future. This process shows behavior, functionality, and the main tasks a user may perform, although this only scratches the surface of both complex processes.

Personas and Research Reports

It’s incredibly important that designers fully understand the needs of the product’s customers. By making personas, they are more able to wrap their heads around what’s at hand and communicate user behavior patterns. Conducting research on the users is one of the most essential steps to successful designs.

Personas represent the typical users of a certain product by embodying the goals, needs, and interests, while aiding the designers to emerge with more empathy and understanding towards the user. User research involves a wide range of approaches used to uproot behavioral patterns and gain context and insight.

Wireframing

Wireframes are two-dimensional, blueprint-like drawings that illustrate a design framework and any interface elements looking to be achieved. It also helps greatly in showing what goes where as its primary purpose is for layout. Wireframes are known as the bread-and-butter for UX designers and they are definitely one of the most universally necessary deliverables for any project. They help to space out content, understand functionalities and the interaction between the users, and solidify the desired user behaviors and how they will interact. These wireframes can be done in a low-fidelity manner (no styling or color) or in high-fidelity (very detailed/stylized and filled with color).

Interactive Prototypes

Interactive prototypes really begin to tie a product together and give it life! This tool helps designers to communicate their design fittingly at many different stages of their process. There are various ways to go about prototyping, but they all help the designers to see how things will function as a user interacts with it. Although sketches and wireframing have some commonalities with prototyping and are, of course, crucial to the process, prototyping is where the real magic starts to happen and connections form. Additionally, trouble spots are easily seen in this part of the process and can be fixed before they become a serious issue.

Visual Design

This step in the design process of projects is often referred to as the “final coat of paint,” although there’s quite a bit more to it than that title leads on. Visual design can immensely affect the user experience of a product and it’s absolutely necessary to take the proper time and precautions here. It’s really one last opportunity to raise the design up to the highest level it can be. This is the final step before the styleguide process begins where things are handed off to the developers. The visual design of a project is an opportunity to define and implement colors that positively affect the layout and visual hierarchy to help the user experience.₁