Tag Archives: deliverable

UX, UX Deliverables and Assets

Work Breakdown Structures in UX

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Jennifer Blatz Design Work Breakdown Structures in UX
A Work Breakdown Structures looks similar to a way to illustrate a site map for a website or product.

Have you ever heard of a “Work Breakdown Structure”? Me neither. I was recently reading an article and the subject came up. So, like any curious UX Designer, my curiosity was naturally piqued by a new topic.

A Work Breakdown Structure does not have to have a fancy visual format. It can also be structured in a simple Excel spreadsheet.

Jennifer Blatz Design Work Breakdown Structures in UX

So what is a Work Breakdown Structure anyways? According to Wikipedia, a Work Breakdown Structure is often used in project management and systems engineering. It is a deliverable-oriented breakdown of a project into smaller components.

OK that makes sense. So how could this technique be used in UX? I can see it being used in a variety of ways.

First, how about in information architecture?

A Work Breakdown Structure, or I’ll abbreviate it as WBS for short, could be used when documenting the different pages and subpages of a website. This could be an tidy way of showing page hierarchy as well as all of the different components that reside on every page.

A WBS could also be used to demonstrate the different pieces of an application, fromA Work Breakdown Structure. This could surface duplicate places where information resides. This could be especially important to discover if you are dealing with a very complicated application, that just seems to bloat to no end.

Don’t take assumptions at face value.

A WBS could also be used to break down the scope of a project. You could lay out the different portions of a site or app, and include dates the aspect would be worked on and the team players involved.

Not just scope, but a WBS can help a team work through a budget for a project. Use this process to lay out the different pieces of a project and estimate how much each of those pieces will cost to design, build and test.

From a technical side, a WBS could be used to illustrate where different versions or portions of your files reside on different servers. It could be a helpful way to surface where files are being saved and to see if there is any unnecessary duplication or old files that could be purged.

Overall, I find that a Work Breakdown Structure is simply a helpful way to surface information to share with others. Sometimes we assume just how things are structured. By working through this inventory, and truly mapping out in an (ugly) Excel document, we might just discover things we did not really know. As with any project involving UX, don’t take assumptions at face value. Sometimes working through exercises like creating a WBS document might prove very helpful indeed. Not only to show where things exist right now, but also how things can be improved in the future.

UX, UX Deliverables and Assets

Questions to ask your Client in a Kickoff

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Jennifer Blatz UX design kickoff questions
The kickoff meeting is a great place to start your exploration in to a new UX design project.

So you hear a new project is coming your way. And you don’t know anything about it. You see on your calendar that a meeting has been scheduled with your product manager, the developers and a few other people you don;t know. This initial meeting is what is known as a “Kickoff Meeting” and this is a great opportunity for you to get some questions answered.

Questions answered?!? Yikes. What questions? Well that is pretty simple. You start to think about what information you need to get the project started. As a UX designer or researcher, there might be a million questions swimming in your head about the project. And you worry that there is no way you are going to get them all answered in one hour-long kickoff meeting. And that is OK if they are not all answered in that first meeting.

The purpose of this post is to give you a check list of questions to come prepared to the kickoff meeting. There is nothing worse than blanking out when you hear that infamous prompt: “Do you have any question?”

Well of course you do, you have a million of them But you have suddenly drawn a blank.

Jennifer Blatz User Experience UX designer

OK. Let’s fix that. As with any project, it’s good to have a plan and come prepared. Here is a list of questions that you could ask at a kickoff meeting (or followup if you run out of time) so that you have information to get you started on a project.

Questions for the Kickoff

  • Tell me a bit about the project. Give me a bit of context.
  • What are the goals of the project?
  • What is the motivation behind this project?
  • How would you define success for this?
  • What research already exists for this project or something similar?
  • What do you want to find out through research?
  • What is the timeline and deadlines?
  • What are the user’s main pain points?
  • How do you know these are the main pain points?
  • What do you think is missing (from the design/app/interface)?
  • What do you think would make it better?
  • What do you expect the outcomes or deliverables to be?
  • Who are the stakeholders we should be talking to?
  • Are we leaving out any resources?
  • Where do we go from here to get started? What are the next steps?

They key here is to squash assumptions and to understand the project’s motivation, goals, success metrics, expectations and deadlines. A few key questions, at your fingertips, should help you to gather this very important information.

UX Deliverables and Assets, Web Design

Creating wireframes for CoCo Website

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We are getting so close to implementing actual design. I created a few drafts of a wireframe for an upcoming client meeting. Wireframes are a great way to communicate.

I love that wireframe can be used as a discussion point for so many things:

  • Take your sketch to the next level
  • In some instances, ad branding color and logo
  • Show basic flow of page
  • See if you and your client are on the same page
  • Illustrate some design ideas, and discuss interactivity or animation potential
  • Allow the client to modify concepts because you are both looking at the same thing
  • Working together in person to come up with a better solution

wireframe as a UX deliverable

 

UX Deliverables and Assets

Story board for Gluten in Beer App

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GluteninBeer app story board
GluteninBeer app story board to illustrate a scenario of a use case.

As part of my GluteninBeer app development, I wanted to create a story board. Please don’t judge me on my drawing ability! As I child, I was a pretty good illustrator. Now, as you can see, I am complete crap. Oh well….

But illustrating some ideas, in other words, getting them out on paper, is always a good idea. So I thought creating a story board would be a good step in the UX process.

I drew this by hand, first in pencil, then reinforced it in sharpie. The I scanned it in to Photoshop to clean it up a bit. I also added the color highlights in Photoshop. This will be part of a portfolio piece for the GluteninBeer app development

Web Design

New www.jenniferblatzdesign.com website redesign

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Since you made it to this blog, it’s very likely that you came here through my home page at www.jenniferblatzdesign.com. But just in case you did not, and came in some special “back door” way, I wanted to emphasize that my portfolio site has a new design.

I opened with my UX portfolio. As you can see, I am accumulating a lot of UX assets and deliverables. One can also view some examples of my visual design work.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my newly-designed site. I would LOVE your feedback if you have any suggestions for improvement.

New cleaner layout for jenniferblatzdesign.com website.
New cleaner layout for jenniferblatzdesign.com website.
UX Deliverables and Assets

Creating Personas for Coalition website

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Persona for Community Coalition UX Jennifer Blatz Design
Persona for Community Coalition

As part of my Community Coalition of South LA Taproot project, or better knows as CoCo I am working on some deliverables to accompany the project. Based on one of the stakeholder interviews I performed this week, and other resources provided by the organization, I came up with this fabulous Shelia Persona.