The power of a UX project brief (template included)
By: Matěj Káninský
Tags: User Experience, Project Management, Design Process, Project Brief, Template

UX Project Brief [Template]

Name of the project

Started on:

Last updated on:

Background

Describe what the project is about, what’s its context and background.

Describe why it’s being carried out. If it’s a part of a wider customer journey, link it here.

Objective

Describe what is the ideal future you want to have once this project is finished. What is the outcome you’re looking to get out of this?

How does this fit into your team’s and/or company’s wider goals? (Link them here.)

What is the benefit for the business?

What is the benefit for the user?

Key results & Success criteria

How will you know the project was successful once it’s finished?

Think KPIs, OKRs, UX metrics, benchmarks, company targets (whatever your company is using).

Target audience

Describe the target audience for this project.

You can link to your personas.

The team and stakeholder map

Define team roles and responsibilities.

List stakeholders and describe what level of involvement is needed/expected.

Who is the decision-maker (sign off)?

[Note: One way of doing this can be a RACI matrix]

Scope

What’s in scope

Describe what definitely needs to be worked on and why.

What might be in scope

Often, there are those ‘maybe areas and topics’ — list them and describe conditions under which they could be included (e.g. if we have time, if we find out enough evidence in user research, etc.)

What’s not in scope

Describe what the design team should not challenge (e.g. hard technical constraints, change of CMS, major design overhauls during a platform migration project, etc.)

[Note: I use this one more as a guide to understand which topics will be hard to change, which things shall be taken as project constraints, and what the business values as a status quo. However, in practice, if you make some key discoveries which could significantly help the product and you have a really strong rationale for them, everything can be challenged.]

Dependencies

Are there any other teams, people, technology or anything else that the success of this project is dependent on? Describe them.

Risks

List risks and caveats that need to be considered.

E.g. What are the risks to the success of this project? What would happen if we don’t meet the deadline?

Deliverables

List tangible artefacts that this project is expected to deliver.

Timings

Link to a product road map.

List currently known deadlines and milestones.

Add the expected project start date [if filling in before the team is assembled] and the expected delivery date.

Ways of working

Team routines

What will be the team ceremonies and who shall be involved?

Will you work in sprints? One-week, two-week ones? Will you have regular check-ins? Design crits? Retrospectives? Etc.

When? Who shall organise those?

Communication

What communication tools will you use and what for? (Email vs Slack vs JIRA vs Zoom, etc.)

Design, collaboration and documentation tools

What design and collaboration tools will you use?

How will you document the project?

How will you share your designs with stakeholders and development?

Shared data

Where is the project space/folder and all the materials relevant to the project? Does everyone have access? If not, who will make sure everyone has it?

Additional notes

If there is something else, specific to this project, state it here.