{"id":5776,"date":"2014-10-10T22:16:36","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T05:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proxystudio.uxpin.com\/?p=5776"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:15:08","slug":"guide-ux-design-process-documentation-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uxpin.com\/studio\/blog\/guide-ux-design-process-documentation-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guide To UX Design Process & Documentation – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, we explain<\/i> the general product design process and relevant documents you might produce at the first three of seven stages. It is meant to be a flexible framework as opposed to a strict recipe. These ideas are covered in greater detail across 150+ pages in the Guide to UX Design Process & Documentation e-book<\/a>.<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

The following is an overview of product design and development documentation, constituent elements, and the respective phases to which they belong. The development process and resulting documents can vary widely between companies, as many follow their own unique design and development principles\/methodology. In general, however, many of the deliverables below are common within most organizations in some form\u2014including my wireframing and prototyping company, UXPin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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How They All Relate<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Prior to elaborating on each constituent document, it may be helpful to take a cursory look at them from a bird’s eye perspective, in the context of the entire product design and development process:<\/p>\n

1. During the initial phase of product definition<\/b>, you’re brainstorming the product and how to execute on the project at the highest level with all necessary stakeholders. This might result in project kickoff plan, a lean canvas, and a bunch of really early sketches of what you’re trying to build.<\/p>\n

2. Moving into research<\/b>, your team needs to refine your assumptions and fill in blanks. This stage varies based on the complexity of the product, timing, resources, level of existing knowledge, and many other factors. In general, however, it’s good to build out competitive and market analyses and conduct customer surveys. If you have an existing product, reviewing analytics, heuristics, content, product context, and user tests are also really helpful.<\/p>\n

3. In analysis, <\/b>the product marketing data collected thus far is used as the groundwork for generating personas, experience maps, and requirements-related documents such as prioritized requirements lists and user-task matrices. At this point, the product definition, product priorities, and product plan has been defined and are ready for more formal design deliverables although sketches and diagrams are likely constantly being generated throughout this time.<\/p>\n

4. From this output, scenarios, concept maps, and mockups may be created, leading into the design<\/b> phase\u2014whereupon activities such as conceptualization through sketches, wireframes, lo-fidelity, and hi-fidelity prototype creation, and design element specifications through task-flow diagrams, guidelines, and assets creation are undertaken. For example, competitive analysis and personas created during research<\/i> and analysis<\/i> are instrumental at this stage for building mockups, concept maps, and scenarios. In turn, these items provide the impetus for creating intermediate and advanced stage design outputs such as wireframes, storyboards, and detailed mockups.<\/p>\n

5. During implementation<\/b>, code and design assets are assembled to create a product that adheres to the previously established product design specifications.<\/p>\n

6. Upon launch of the live product<\/b>, feedback data such as trouble\/support tickets, bug reports, and other analytics will continue to drive product development and refinement through subsequent iterations, upgrades, and projects. With the offering in production mode, data should be continually generated and monitored in the form of analytics and reports to ensure the continued success of the product.<\/p>\n

7. Continual, data-driven product improvement can be achieved through measuring and iterating <\/b>the offering in production, using performance dashboards and analytics.<\/p>\n

1. Product Definition<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Initial activities such as stakeholder’s kickoff meeting, brainstorming, and rudimentary product sketching lead to the creation of the following outputs:<\/p>\n