The UX Process Checklist Every Designer Needs

Every designer needs a UX process checklist to achieve their desired outcome. It’s critical to reach user satisfaction no matter which industry. Because when you build a good experience for customers, they’ll spread the word and save businesses tons of money in marketing.

Therefore, the next time you start a project for one of your clients, keep this checklist in mind. It will help you stay focused, align your project with business goals, understand the user and avoid high-cost mistakes.

1. Identify Your Buyer Personas

Understanding your buyer personas is critical to your project’s success. When you represent your ideal customers, you create more valuable content for them. As a result, a personalized user experience exists.

To create your buyer personas, consider the problem or pain point that exists. Listen to your users to gain a solid understanding of who they are in real life. Once you identify the problem and create your user personas, you can build a solvable product for just those people.

2. Create an Efficient Buyer Journey

Part of the UX process checklist should include creating a smooth UX journey. Think of where you want to guide your users. Will you have them buy a product, book a consultation or download a free guide?

Understand where your users will be starting from every angle. Not every user will start from the home page or have the same intent.

Ensure you provide a clear journey for every type of user.

3. Create a Flawless Wireframe

When you have an explicit user flow, you can start brainstorming and sketch a wireframe or pass it to your wireframe designers. 

However, your content hub should have a seamless format to create a clear visual hierarchy of the site’s architecture.

4. Develop a Prototype

Once you develop your wireframe, your next step in the UX process checklist is developing prototypes. A prototype is important since it allows testing before finalizing the designs.

You can use your computer to develop your prototype and include a visual representation of your final design. Prototypes don’t normally have interactive elements. Therefore the prototype is intended to illustrate the product on multiple devices. 

5. Find Potential Usability Problems

Once you have a good prototype, it will be easier to uncover any usability obstacles. You may have users test the features first before being able to identify any errors.

Ultimately, you should uniquely treat every UX case. If a user experiences one too many issues, you’ll likely have a higher bounce rate.

Therefore, it’s important to identify the usability issues first before the website goes live. That way, you have a successful product from the start.

6. Communicate On-Brand Message

Ensure the language you use communicates your brand personality and is easily understood. This step is where the copywriters should come in and have a clear set of brand guidelines.

When you have a set of those guidelines, you should be able to maintain consistency at all times. Doing so keeps your writers and the customer in the same boat.

7. Test Usability on All Devices

Not all websites work equally well on all devices, so it’s important to check the usability of each gadget. Many developers forget this step in the process. Therefore, you’ll need to test your product on tablets, computers and smartphones.

8. Align Your KPIs With Business Goals

Every project needs KPIs (key performance indicators) to understand how well the product performs. When you analyze your KPIs, you can dig deeper and identify solutions.

For instance, a KPI can time your users’ click rates. If the timing takes longer, it can indicate an issue with load times. 

9. Get User Feedback

Customer feedback is essential to solving your UX problems. Engage with users and create a feedback loop before the issue dentures the business.

You can show users you care by including messages in the places where errors occur. This informs customers that you recognize the mistakes and you’re taking action.

10. Finalize Your Layout

You can begin finalizing your layout by incorporating on-brand images, colors, fonts and icons. Include micro-interactions and transitions to engage and encourage users to stay. 

Once you finalize your layout, you can plan successful A/B testing and form a hypothesis. Upon project completion, you can keep an eye on your project with UX analytic tools. 

Testing and analyzing is the only way to ensure sustainable business growth. No project is ever truly completed. It requires continuous developments in your UX design journey.

Using Your UX Process Checklist for Project Success

Your UX process checklist is intended for guiding your workflow and keeping things organized. However, you can add to this checklist to tailor it to your project needs. 

While some processes may differ slightly, it’s always important to keep using this checklist for repeated project success.