What are the deliverables of UX UI design projects?

UX deliverables serve as essential tools for facilitating communication, guiding the design process, and ensuring user-centric design. These deliverables are integral in maintaining a strong client-designer relationship and delivering a remarkable user experience in design projects.

As a leading UI/UX design agency, we are passionate about delivering exceptional designs that exceed client expectations. Our focus on effective communication and collaboration with stakeholders and team members ensures a seamless design process that is both efficient and effective.

How we communicate the outcome of each stage of the design process is a key topic of interest for most prospective clients. In this article, we address a set of questions to highlight our design process steps and the outcomes and deliverables: 

• What are the UX deliverables we create at the end of a design project? 
• Are the deliverables we provide enough to build a user-centric design? 
• How do UX deliverables help in adding new features to the design? 

What are UX deliverables? 

To start with the basics, UX deliverables are the tangible record of our work after each stage of the design process. It helps the design team exchange ideas, communicate research findings, and guide the design and development. UX deliverables are great tools to coordinate and organize design activities regardless of the industry or platform. 

Here is the summary of the UX deliverables we create at Aufait UX in each stage of the design process. 

Research phase 

• User research document 
• UI/UX competitive research report 
• User persona

UX design phase 

• Information Architecture 
• User flow chart 
• Wireframes 
• Interactive prototype 
• Usability testing report 

UI design phase 

• Visual design mockups 
• UI animations 
• Design system 
• Design specifications 

Let’s take a closer look at each of the UX deliverables.  

User research document 

Conducting user research is an essential step in any design project. Our team compiles the results of this research into a comprehensive user research document, which provides valuable insights into the goals, objectives, and perspectives of our users. Through a combination of individual interviews, field studies, and online surveys, we gain a deep understanding of user needs, emotions, behavior, and motivations. These findings serve as a valuable resource, informing and guiding our design decisions at every stage of the project.

The user research report is a critical tool for our design team, providing the foundation for creating truly user-centered designs that meet the needs and expectations of our users. With a focus on actionable insights, we ensure that every design decision is informed by a deep understanding of our users.

User persona

A user persona is a fictional representation of a real-life user, capturing their behavior, motivations, and characteristics. By creating personas, we gain a deeper understanding of our target users and are better able to empathize with their needs. Our personas are a combination of text and visually appealing infographics, providing an easy-to-understand representation of our target users. The information and data used to create these personas are gathered through comprehensive user research, giving us a detailed understanding of the users we aim to serve.

Have a look at the user persona created by our design team to get an overall understanding of the user requirements. 

To ensure that our designs meet the needs of a diverse range of users, we often create multiple personas, each representing a different type of user from the target audience. To make these personas easier to distinguish, we assign each a unique tagline or label. By using personas in our design process, we are able to design with empathy, keeping the needs of our users at the forefront of our minds.

UI/UX competitive research report 

We closely track the products of our client's competitors and create comprehensive competitor research reports that assess their strengths and weaknesses. For each project, we identify the top direct competitors and evaluate their design solutions and their ability to address user pain points.

We then take the time to analyze the features provided by competing products and improve 

upon them in order to enhance our own design. Our research phase is not limited to just the specific industry, as we also take into account the diverse experiences of end-users by considering products outside of the immediate scope of our design.

Here is an example of the competitive analysis report our design team prepared to assess the design of our client’s competitor. 

Information architecture and sitemap

After compiling the research findings, we use them to develop an information architecture for the design. This document outlines the product's functionality and how it works for the user, with a focus on organizing, structuring, and labeling content for improved navigation and task completion. Whether we're creating a new design or enhancing an existing one, the information architecture helps ensure that the design meets the user's needs and industry standards.

Based on the information architecture, we create sitemaps that provide a visual representation of the design's organization and structure. These sitemaps provide an overview of the navigation and interlinking of different sections and are useful for collaboration with stakeholders and defining the project scope. The sitemaps help us to understand the purpose of the design and the features required, and make it easier to organize content effectively.

At Aufait UX, we use Figjam to create sitemaps, which serve as a valuable reference for tracking the scope of designs and coordinating the team's efforts.

User flow charts 

User flow charts illustrate the series of actions users take to achieve their goals, and depict the journey they experience. We use a specific design format to combine screen layouts into flowcharts, breaking down the user-system interaction into simple scenarios. The goal of user flow charts is to provide designers with a clear understanding of the user journeys, including their pain points and behaviors.

These flow charts are flexible and can evolve over the course of the project. We start by creating empty rectangular boxes and arrows that outline the user workflow and then add wireframes to the document. Once the production stage begins, we replace these with the final visuals.

Creating user workflows allows us to iterate the design based on the user experience, and continually monitor the progress of the project. This enables us to identify any flaws or areas of confusion early on, helping to ensure the end product meets the needs of the user.

Wireframes 

Wireframes are a basic outline of a website or app's structure. We use wireframes to clarify project requirements, define main layouts, outline user experience workflows, and place content. Wireframes are a valuable tool for quickly iterating the design and obtaining feedback from stakeholders and end-users.

At Aufait UX, we create low-fidelity wireframes as hand-drawn sketches or grayscale designs in Figma, allowing us to accurately define the interface and its elements. These wireframes help us to test and refine our ideas before moving on to more advanced stages of the design process.

Wireframe created by our design team to communicate with the team members and the stakeholders. 

Interactive prototypes 

The last step in our design process is creating interactive prototypes, which are high-fidelity simulations of the final product. These prototypes give users a realistic experience of the design and help our design team identify any areas that need improvement.

At Aufait UX, we create interactive prototypes using Figma and use them to conduct user testing. We share these prototypes with clients and stakeholders to gather their feedback and make any necessary changes. This stage allows us to ensure that the final product meets both the user's needs and the client's expectations.

Usability testing report 

At Aufait UX, we regularly validate our design assumptions and decisions by conducting usability testing. After conducting user testing sessions, we compile our findings into a usability testing report, which highlights the recommended changes for the next steps and provides a summary of the usability goals, setup, and user demographics.

 We share audio and video recordings, along with other supporting documents, with stakeholders to give them a better understanding of the testing process and its results. This helps us ensure that the final product is user-friendly and meets the needs of its intended audience.

Take a look at the comprehensive usability testing report delivered by our design team. 

Design system 

At Aufait UX, we use a design system to streamline the work of our design team and ensure consistency in our designs. Our design system comprises several key elements: a style guide, a components library, UX guidelines, and a pattern library.

• The style guide formalizes important design principles and outlines the visual identity of the project. It also defines rules for typography, color, fonts, responsiveness, and visualizations.

• The components library is a collection of UI elements, stored in a Figma file or another software, based on the project requirements. It serves as a reference for designers.

• The UX guidelines document provides recommendations for navigation and guides designers on how to use and apply UX design patterns.

• The pattern library is a set of reusable functional design components that form the core of our design system.

Before starting any project, our team analyzes the unique purpose of the design and assesses how a design system can address it. This helps us to build a tailored design system that meets the specific needs of each project.

Design Specification 

Our design specifications document outlines the design elements and provides clear instructions on their use and implementation. This helps to ensure that the final product matches the original design vision and eliminates any potential misunderstandings or discrepancies between design and development.

UX Deliverables - An important communication tool

UX deliverables are the key to effective communication between the design team and stakeholders. We view them as valuable assets that enhance the design and align it with the user's perspective. Our end-user requirements guide us in delivering an exceptional user experience for each design project.

Even after sharing the UX deliverables, our client-focused UI UX design agency maintains a close relationship with our clients through ongoing support.