Key takeaways
- 🔍 UX deliverables structure the design process, helping designers communicate decisions with stakeholders.
- 💡 Different stages of the UX process include specific deliverables, such as personas, wireframes, and prototypes.
- 🍯 User testing reports and usability test plans, are essential for continuous refinement through user feedback.
- 📈 A well-defined UX process with clear deliverables leads to user-centric products and smoother project handoffs to developers.
If you are working on a digital product, whether a website, an app, or a platform ensuring a smooth UX design process is key, and UX deliverables can help you stay on track!
Contrary to common beliefs that design is a purely creative process, UX design is a highly structured approach consisting of key stages and outputs. The key outputs deriving from the actions in the different stages of the UX design process are called UX deliverables.
UX deliverables guide the design process helping UX designers communicate their ideas and design solutions among stakeholders.
In this article, we have collated everything you need to know about the 15 most common UX deliverables and how they fit into each stage of the design process.
What are UX deliverables?
UX deliverables are key outputs that UX designers create throughout the UX design process. These artifacts guide the design process and help UX designers communicate their design decisions, ensuring that all stakeholders are on board with the vision of the project.
UX deliverables can include research findings, wireframes, prototypes, user flows, and other artifacts. Each of those deliverables serves a purpose and helps massively in the creation of a user-friendly digital product.
Importance of UX deliverables
UX deliverables are critical throughout the entire UX design process. Deliverables can help designers not only understand user needs but also validate assumptions and turn research into design solutions.
In essence, UX deliverables are tangible artifacts that track the progress of the design process and serve as the link between design and development. Hence, those deliverables are quintessential for crafting user-centric products that can solve real problems.
Stages of the UX design process
There are five key stages in the UX design process:
1. Research and discovery phase
The first stage of the UX design process is the user research phase. In this initial stage, designers gather insights into the user’s expectations, behaviors as well as pain points. In this stage, some of the main UX deliverables are the user personas, the user flows, and the competitive analysis.
These UX deliverables can massively help UX designers and other stakeholders in the project to better understand the problem the product tries to solve and the approach for the overall user experience of the interface.
2. Information architecture & wireframing
The next stage of the UX design process is information architecture and wireframing. After the initial gathering of insights, UX designers focus on organizing information and crafting the blueprint of the product.
In this stage, some of the main UX deliverables are sitemaps, wireframes, and user journey maps. Those deliverables can help with the structure of the content and the initial design of the interface, ensuring that the structure of the content aligns with user needs.
3. Interaction & UI design
Next up is the interaction and UI design. This design phase is all about designing how the users will interact with the product as well as how the final interface will look including a style guide!
Some of the key deliverables here include mockups, UI design specifications, and interaction design specifications, which provide interaction guidance to developers.
4. Prototyping & testing
Prototyping and testing come next and it is all about creating a prototype of the product that can be tested with users.
The key deliverables in this stage include interactive prototypes, usability test plans, and user testing reports. These outputs help refine the product based on user feedback.
5. Final design & handoff
Last but not least the final design stage is the design itself and the handoff to the developers for implementation. The UX deliverables at this stage include design systems, responsive design layouts, and handoff documentation for the development stage.
Research and discovery phase
User personas
User personas are artifacts that represent the target users of a product. One of our key tips around crafting user personas that work is to base them on real data that’s derived from your user research studies. Another key tip is to craft user personas that focus on user behavior and not just demographics.
Last but not least, don’t forget that user personas are live artifacts that need to be constantly updated to mirror the ever-changing user needs. Here are some of the tried-and-tested user persona templates to help you hit the ground running:
🍯 Canva
🔍 Figma
🔦 Miro
To learn more about user personas and how to create them, check out our guide. 🐝
UX storyboards
UX storyboards are artifacts that show the interactions within an interface. When creating your storyboards make sure to focus on the key interactions and don’t forget to include the emotional responses that might arise from those interactions. Use simple sketches instead of over-engineering your UX storyboard.
Finally, ensure that the focus is on the perspective of the user and not the perspective of the designer. Here are some of our go-to templates when it comes to UX storyboards.
💡 Milatone
☀️ Figma
User flows
A user flow diagram designed by NN/group.
User flow diagrams are artifacts that show the path that the user takes when interacting with an interface. User flows have the power to reveal the different user touch points ensuring a seamless user journey. When creating user flows simply start by making a note of the user’s entry point and then try to note down all the different user paths.
A key tip is to not over-engineer the flow, focusing on the main use cases. Finally, a good idea when it comes to user flows is validating them with actual users to ensure accuracy. Here are some of our tried and tested templates that can help you create user flows that work:
🔅 Miro
❇️ Figma
Learn more about user flow diagrams and how to create them in this video:
Competitive analysis
Download UXtweak Competitive Analysis Template
The competitive analysis report is a UX deliverable that can help UX researchers understand where they stand with their competition. This deliverable is a great tool to identify opportunities as well as strengthen your market positioning.
When crafting your competitive analysis don’t forget to take into consideration both direct and indirect competitors and use frameworks like SWOT analysis examples to ensure a comprehensive approach. Here are some cool templates to help you get started on your first competitive analysis:
☀️ Smartsheet
🔦 Miro
Information architecture & wireframing
Sitemaps
Sitemaps are a great visual aid that shows the information architecture of an interface. When creating sitemaps a great tip is to use card sorting techniques to organize content. Don’t forget that the structure of the interface needs to align with the user search intent.
Lastly, always remember to test your final sitemap with users to ensure that it aligns with their needs. Here are some great sitemap templates to hit the ground running:
🌱 Canva
💡 Miro
Wireframes
Wireframes are some initial low-fidelity sketches that focus more on the structure of the interface rather than the design details of it. Our top tip when it comes to creating wireframes that work is to focus on key actions per page and focus on content rather than design.
Finally, low-fidelity wireframes are low-fidelity for a reason so don’t hesitate to iterate as needed per your users’ feedback. Here are some tried-and-tested wireframe templates to get you started:
💼 Miro
✨ Figma
User journey maps
User journey maps are artifacts that map all the user touchpoints including potential opportunities for improvement. Our top tip when it comes to customer journey maps is to ensure that for each of the touchpoints you dedicate a space to show the emotional state of the user.
Another great tip is to also note any possibility of friction that might occur at those touchpoints. Lastly, use real and not fictional data to fill in your user experience maps. Here are some cool templates to get you started:
🧩 Canva
🔦 Figma
Interaction & UI design
Mockups
A great representation of the differences between wireframes, mockups and prototypes by InVision.
Mockups are visual representations of an interface that include design elements such as colors, typography, and images. These UX artifacts help UX designers create and stick to a cohesive look. When creating your mockups stay consistent with your brand guidelines.
Always ensure that important elements pop out and don’t forget to iterate based on user feedback. Here are some tried-and-tested templates to get you started:
🔎 Canva
📌 Mockup
UI design specifications
UI design specifications are an artifact that helps UX designers and developers better understand the visual and interactive elements of an interface.
Three of our top tips when it comes to creating UI design specifications that work are to use annotations to explain the elements that you showcase, be detailed when it comes to the sizing and spacing, and to review this artifact along with the developers to ensure clarity across the board.
If you are unsure what a UI design specification deliverable looks like here are some templates to get you started:
📊 Lark
🎈 Dribble
Interaction design specifications
Interaction design specifications laser focus on the interactive elements of the interface such as the CTA buttons or the animations. When creating interaction design specifications, make use of clear terminology, provide examples for complex interaction, and don’t forget to include any transitions if necessary! Notion’s template can get you started:
🧲 Notion
Prototyping & testing
Interactive prototypes
High-fidelity prototypes are artifacts that simulate user interactions and can be a great help when it comes to testing. When creating interactive prototypes, focus on key interactions and key user cases. Finding the right tool can make or break your prototype, so use tools like Figma or Invasion for ease of use.
Lastly, test your prototypes with real users to validate your design decisions. Here are some interactive prototype templates to get you started:
✨ Miro
🔦 Figma
If you want to learn more about prototype testing, we’ve created a guide showcasing everything from methods to testing types.
Usability test plans
These artifacts outline the methods that you will be using for testing including basic scripts with tasks and goals. Usability reports ensure a structured approach to gathering feedback.
When creating test plans, start by defining a clear objective. Choose a task that aligns with a primary user goal and don’t forget to include open-ended questions in your script to get juicier insights. Crafting usability test plans can be tricky so here are some templates to get you started:
✅ Hotjar
User testing reports
User testing reports are documents where the main findings from the usability studies are summarized. When crafting a usability test report, mention actionable insights (not just raw data) and use visual aids to help stakeholders better understand the data shown.
Also, don’t forget to prioritize the findings based on importance and severity. Here are some cool templates to hit the ground running with your user testing report:
💡 Figma
Final design & handoff
Design systems
Design Systems are a set of guidelines that ensure consistency across an interface. Google’s material design is a great example of such a system. When creating a design system ensure that you have a style guide for your UI components, colors, and typography.
Craft components that are easy to duplicate and reuse! Finally, don’t forget to regularly update your design system as your design evolves. Here are some extremely handy templates:
🌱 Figma
🎈 Notion
Responsive design layouts
Responsive design layouts ensure that a product looks and behaves as expected on different screens and devices. Our top tips here are to create a layout with a mobile-first approach in mind and to always test your designs across different devices. Here is a great template to get you started:
Handoff documentation
This is one of the most important deliverables as in this document you provide all the necessary details for the implementation of the design.
Our top tips here are to use a platform that integrates with the tool that your developers are using, include handy annotations for spacing and general behavior of the interface, and always create space to review the document in question with developers before its implementation. Here are some handy templates for this deliverable:
🔅 Figma
📌 Notion
How to use AI for UX deliverables
AI can be of great help when it comes to creating UX deliverables. For instance, AI-powered tools like DALLE and ChatGPT interpret data to create artifacts, such as user personas, user journeys, and UX storyboards. Such tools are also capable of creating comprehensive competitive analysis documents by identifying key trends.
To sum up
UX deliverables are critical in helping designers communicate insights and design decisions. Each of the aforementioned artifacts serves a distinct purpose and all of them contribute to a smooth UX design process leading to the creation of user-friendly digital interfaces.
If you are at the beginning of your UX deliverables journey, the UXtweak platform is a great place to start as it can help you gather all the necessary data to feed into your UX deliverables. 🐝
