UX planning helps organizations and UX teams
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UX planning helps organizations and UX teams

  • Published on
by Jennifer Smith
UX planning helps organizations and UX teams

User experience (UX) planning is different from project planning or even project management. UX planning begins at the start of a project, and determines the type of UX resources that are required for any given project. The planning considers what type of research is needed, how use case scenarios will be determined, the fidelity level of prototypes that will be created, along with the level of wireframes that are needed for development. The planning process also considers the level of documentation required for developers, and any assets that are needed. In short, UX planning creates the roadmap for a successful project.

While research helps you develop a clear understanding of what items are essential for a project to succeed from a user’s perspective, at the UX planning stage you’ll first determine what type of research will occur. Will there be interviews, surveys, heat maps, and eye tracking? Are you working with existing users or determining prospective users? The planning helps the UX team clearly understand their goals and objectives.

Similarly, planning determines the range of user scenarios you anticipate creating for a project, and what type of resources are needed for prototyping, testing, and eventually wireframes. As each project has different needs, effective UX planning also helps the UX team and the organization as a whole understand required time, budget and resources for a project. Having a UX plan in place helps you understand how long the UX portion of a website or app development project will take.

Understanding the entire UX process is a critical part to UX planning. A user experience course, such as UX Design Principles offers a survey of all that is required in a typical UX workflow. Understanding the entire UX process makes it possible to more effectively plan UX projects.

UX planning is beneficial to both the company and end user in increasing productivity, creating websites and apps that are engaging and focused on results by eliminating unnecessary steps for an effective user experience.

 

About the author

 is a user experience designer, educator and author based in Boston. She has worked in the field of user experience design for more than 15 years. She has designed websites, ecommerce sites, apps, and embedded systems. Jennifer designs solutions for mobile, desktop, and iOT devices. Jennifer holds a Master of Science (MS) degree in Human Factors in Information Design, a Bachelors degree with a concentration in Commercial Art. When not teaching at American Graphics Institute, Jennifer Smith is an adjunct professor at Boston University.

Jennifer delivers UX training and UX consulting for large Fortune 100 companies, small start-ups, and independent software vendors.She has served as a Designer in Residence at Microsoft, assisting third-party app developers to improve their design solutions and create successful user experiences. She has been hired by Adobe and Microsoft to deliver training workshops to their staff, and has traveled to Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East, and across the U.S. to deliver courses and assist on UX design projects. She has extensive knowledge of modern UX Design, and worked closely with major tech companies to create educational material and deliver UX workshops to key partners globally. Jennifer works with a wide range of prototyping tools including XD, Sketch, Balsamiq, Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Blend for Visual Studio. She also works extensively in the fields of presentation design and visual design.

Jennifer is also an expert on Photoshop, digital image editing, and photo manipulation. Having written 10 books on Photoshop, and having consulted and provided training to major media companies and businesses around the globe.

Jennifer is the author of more than 20 books on design tools and processes, including Adobe Creative Cloud for Dummies, Adobe Creative Cloud Digital Classroom, and Photoshop Digital Classroom. She has been awarded a Microsoft MVP three times for her work with user experience design in creating apps for touch, desktop, and mobile devices. Jennifer holds the CPUX-F certification from the User Experience Qualification Board and assists others in attaining this designation in leading a UX certification course at American Graphics Institute.