When I started at Logi in the summer of 2021, the product needed significant help from the UX team. Since that time, the team has added two new UX designers and has built trusted relationships with development teams and product leadership.
In a short time, I fully integrated UX into development workflows and expanded the scope of UX deliverables to include a variety of artifacts that give a voice to the needs of the user.
Now, the UX team is truly a champion for user needs.
I have delivered all of these artifacts as part of my UX design process and have shared templates for my colleagues to use in their initiatives.
UX Feature Checklist
- Description: List of questions that, once answered, enables proper planning of UX research and design initiatives. Responses to the questions make it possible to determine which artifacts to produce (user journey map, usability test vs. interviews, task-flow diagrams).
- Artifacts created: UX feature checklist
- UX checklist for new or existing feature design
- How it is used in the UX process: Used to better understand a feature and to make sure the product and UX teams are on the same page. It also helps the UX team allocate resources appropriately based on project size and the amount of research and design work needed.
- When used: As an initial step for designing any new or existing feature.
- Who uses it: UX Designers and PMs
Personas
- Description: Personas are an empathy-inducing shorthand for our users’ context, motivations, needs, and approaches to using our products. They are meant to help us focus on what matters most to our users and put ourselves in their shoes when making design decisions.
- Artifacts created: User personas
- How it is used in the UX process: To create reliable and realistic representations of your key audience segments for reference. They should be referred to as if they were real people, because they do in fact represent actual qualities of real people. Personas help teams design for their audience instead of solving problems for themselves.
- When used: At all points of research and product design
- Who uses it: Product and marketing teams
User Journey
- Description: Used to describe the process of interaction between a user and a product. User journeys are used in designing to identify the different ways to enable the user to achieve their goal as quickly and easily as possible.
- Artifacts created: User Journey map
- How it is used in the UX process: Used in discovery phase to understand how the user interacts with the product.
- When used: Used at the initial stage before designing to understand user behavior.
- Who uses it: It is used to brainstorm ideas between the designers and the PM/PO.
- Template/inspiration: Nielsen Norman Group: UX Research, Training, and Consulting
User Interviews
- Description: User interviews are used for getting user feedback. Used to learn about users’ perceptions, language, and attitudes. Studying these aspects of a user base helps align the product and design with their needs.
- Artifacts created: Categorized feedback on specific products and prioritization of new features/design enhancements.
- How it is used in the UX process: Used to define personas, user flows, and understand user perceptions/attitudes/goals.
- When used: Used during UX research phase
- Who uses it: UX Designers
User Flows
- Description: User flows, UX flows, or flowcharts, as they are sometimes called, are diagrams that display the complete path a user takes when using a product. User flows do not use UI elements from your application.
- Artifacts created: User flow diagrams
- How it is used in the UX process: UX flows are synthesized early, during the planning stages of your design—after user research has been conducted. Flowcharts can also be made for existing interfaces to enhance the user’s experience or clear up any trouble users are having with the interface.
- When used: Once you have gathered your data from user research, user flows help determine how many screens are needed, what order they should appear in, and what components need to be present. By the time you get to creating a user flow, your affinity diagrams and empathy mapping as well as persona development have all been completed.
- Who uses it: Designers as well as PM/PO
Low-fidelity Mockups/Wireframes
- Description: Non-interactive designs or wireframes to brainstorm ideas and understand/discuss the feature or problem with the PM/PO. Low fidelity wireframes include the most basic content and visuals and are not interactive. Low-fidelity mockups give a basic structure to workflows that address issues identified through user research. Low-fidelity implies a low-level of attention to UI details like input labels, button placement, and alignment. Once a low-fieldity framework has been prove to be a viable solution, greater attention can be devoted to a pixel-perfect mentality.
- Artifacts created: Wireframes
- How it is used in the UX process: They are often used to help map out the shell of the interface, its screens and basic information architecture
- When used: To gather early feedback about the design without any colors or graphics.
- Who uses it: UX Designers, PM, POs
Usability Testing
- Description: Usability testing refers to evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users.
- Artifacts created: Prioritized design enhancements; updated personas
- How it is used in the UX process: To identify any usability problems, collect qualitative and quantitative data and determine the participant’s ability to successfully complete tasks in the product (or prototype).
- When used: Used after low/high fidelity designs are ready and needs to be evaluated for its usability.
- Who uses it: UX Designers, PM
High-fidelity Mocks
- Description: Interactive, clickable prototypes, end-to-end UI workflow design
- Artifacts created: Interactive prototype
- How it is used in the UX process: As a deliverable to the development team as final designs to be implemented. Used for high-level feature design or detailed story-level designs.
- When used:
- When the designs and user experience has been discussed with the PM/PO and is ready to be implemented.
- When you have visual designs of your product.
- When you have an idea about interactive elements, such as navigational schemas from a screen to another; animations; and mini-interactions, and are able to prototype them.
- When you want to test the details of your products in terms of UI elements, colour schemes or copy.
- When you want to test the transitions, animations, and effects of them on the user and user behaviour.
- When you want to know how your target users feel about your product and you want to get their opinions on your designs.
- who uses it: Designers, PM, PO, developers, QA
UX Reviews
- Description: Reviewing the UI implementation against the UI designs or design guidelines to ensure consistency.
- Artifacts created: Actionable tasks for developers to complete; New development stories that will address a given issue in the future
- How it is used in the UX process: Used by the UX designers to make sure implementation matches designs provided by the UX team.
- When used: After a developer moves a story from In Development to Ready for Review. The UX review should take place before QA review..
- Who uses it: UX designers, PM, PO, QA
Design System
- Description: A single source of components, patterns, and styles that unify experiences into a visually cohesive ecosystem. As an added bonus, any major visual rebrands or redesigns can be managed at scale through design systems.
- Artifacts created: Design system or pattern library depending on the purpose.
- How it is used in the UX process: It improves the approach, minimizing time spent creating patterns from scratch so more time can be spent on user-research.
- When used: When there is a need for scale, efficiency, and consistency in Design.
- Who uses it: UX Designers, developers, PMs, QA
Heuristics Evaluation
- Description: A usability engineering method for finding the usability problems in a user interface design so that they can be attended to as part of an iterative design process.
- Artifacts created: Heuristics Evaluation report
- How it is used in the UX process: Used when evaluating an existing product or UI.
- When used: Identify and focus on specific issues without having to speak to users. Discover usability problems with individual elements and how they impact the overall user experience. Provide quick and inexpensive feedback to designers.
- Who uses it: UX Designers