Create a User Experience Brief to Guide Design

What is a User Experience Brief?

The purpose of a User Experience brief is to establish a framework and guiding principles for the user experience design of any interactive experience. It may be a companion or chapter of a larger Creative Brief, which seeks to define brand attributes and explain how these conceptual attributes get articulated in Design. A Creative Brief may focus primarily on graphical elements, however, whereas the User Experience Brief attempts to describe the interaction design and strategic, conceptual model that governs the experience.  

When Does the User Experience Brief Need to be Delivered?

The User Experience Brief, or UX Brief, should kick-off the "Design phase" of an interactive initiative. Typically, this phase follows a "Discovery phase," in which any of the following activities may take place (defined in the next section):

• End-User Research
• Competitor Analysis
• Identification of Business Objectives and Success Measurement

What Are Key Inputs to the User Experience Brief?

• End-User Research - In order to define guiding principles for a User Experience, it is critical to understand the likely behaviors and motivations of the end-user, for which the experience is designed. Prior to developing the User Experience Brief, it is assumed that a qualitative, behavioral research study has been performed. The User Experience Brief should reference the study, when making assertions about the audience, or recommendations about the Design. 
• Competitor Analysis - The User Experience Brief is a strategic document, as much as it is a guiding Design document. As such, it should draw upon insights gained from analysis of industry trends and leading interactive experiences related to the one being designed. Even if the User Experience Designer was not directly involved in the competitor/industry research, she must draw upon those insights to understand what is contemporary, in terms of experience design for that industry's audience. 
• Business Objectives and Key Performance Metrics - Obviously, a User Experience will be measured against its ability to successfully achieve business objectives. Therefore, the conceptual model for the Design of a User Experience, as outlined in the Brief, should be able to be defended in the context of its ability to achieve either user objectives or business objectives. The User Experience Brief may also outline a roadmap of future enhancements to the Design based on an evolving strategic vision for the business, its goals, and changing trends in user behavior.

Format of the User Experience Brief

• Summary of User Experience - The format of the UX Brief can be a PowerPoint, Keynote, InDesign, or Word document, depending on the preference of the client, however, must contain a well-written description of the Design challenge, business objectives, user research summary, and resulting user experience implications. 
• Conceptual Model and Infographics - The document will likely present paradigms, conceptual models, and high-level thinking that can best be illustrated using infographics, which should accompany the text-based summary content.
• Mental Models, Taxonomy, or Preliminary Sketches - Since User Experience documentation will already have been generated, as a result of any user research that has been done to date, it is useful to include any mental models, taxonomies, or interface sketches that may have been developed to support research claims or recommendations.

Who Should Read the User Experience Brief? 

• Client - The client is the primary audience group for the User Experience Brief. This document is a synthesis of all information related to the business' objectives and audience needs; therefore, it is a litmus test to assess if the Design team properly understands the client's holistic needs. 
• Internal Creative Team - The User Experience Brief guides Design, so it should be used as an onboarding document for any Design professionals who engage on the initiative.
• Account Manager - If there is any dispute or challenge to the Design, the Account Manager may need to use this document, as a reference, to help support the internal User Experience Design team.
• Internal Technology Team - With any User Experience Design, there will be technology challenges to its execution. The UX Brief helps to explain the importance of guiding principles that may require specific user interface elements, before they get "lopped off" in the actual execution.

Web Design Evolves: Goodbye Columns. Long Live Rows!

Emerging digital trends have fundamentally altered my approach to Design for the Web. In highly complex, content-heavy experiences, for example, my new focus is to conceptualize and design content modules that can be measured, optimized, re-ordered, and replaced with different modules. Modular Design enables businesses to quickly deploy, test, and optimize new functionality, without destroying the template structure upon which the modules sit.  Pages can be designed to have greater flexibility when the Design concept includes full-width content modules, stacked as rows on the page, enabling module re-ordering, stacking, and replacement in a “non-destructive” template architecture.

The decision to utilize full-width, content modules, stacked in rows, led me to decide to eliminate columns; which was a decision based on emerging trends and technologies. The following are just a few examples of the trends that have led me to adopt a Modular approach to Web Design:

1. Increase in Volume of Content – Marketing, entertainment, ecommerce, and corporate web sites are increasingly becoming content portals, due to evolving marketing/content strategies. This increase in content volume has resulted in a shift of focus with respect to the user experience, from the aesthetic presentation of the content, to its findability and utility. The ability to “merchandise” content in specialized and “personalized” content modules gives marketers the ability to create greater content relevance and improve findability of content.
2. Wider Adoption of Mobile Web – As connected, mobile devices become more widely adopted, web sites must be designed to scale to many different mobile platforms, in order to deliver the same content (in some cases) to users, via a variety of mobile browsers. This is especially true when a business cannot, for typically economic reasons, develop mobile applications that consumers can download from “App Stores.” Having a “mobile browser-optimized” web site, then, requires a modular content design that is flexible enough to render in a wide variety of mobile form factors, screen resolutions, and browser specifications.
3. Changes in User Browse Behavior – Usability testing has proven to me, that users increasingly place their focus on the center of the “page” (in most cases), resulting in blind spots around the periphery of that “sweet spot.” Users were also conditioned to avoid the right column of web sites because of their likelihood to contain advertisements, such as on a Google search results page. Why then, have a periphery? It was a tough pill for me to swallow, but Usability Testing revealed that content placed in a “right column” was getting less attention than content found in the center of the page.
4. Increased Demand for Content Syndication – To increase content engagement and findability, marketers often develop strategies to make their content discoverable on partner web sites and digital platforms. When implementing a content syndication strategy, in order to maintain the integrity of content branding as well as consistency in content interaction, content presentment is often the same, on a partner web site, as on the originating platform.  Content syndication is most effective when it is planned for from the beginning, including early conceptualization of Content Modules that live on the originating platform and are “transportable widgets” that can live on any platform that is beneficial to attract engagement from a relevant audience.  
5. Content Sponsorship – Display advertisements are a necessary evil to drive revenue, however, content sponsorships can prove more effective, relevant, and create a higher degree of engagement with the advertiser brand. A sponsorship can simply be a curated list of content assets that live within an advertiser-branded (“skinned”) module that is contained within the page stack.

There is a valid Design argument and challenge to the decision to commit to a "column-less" Design...It is the issue of "visual interest." Brand is important to the user experience. Emotional impact is important to drive engagement. An unanswered question remains, "How does an additional constraint to Design impact the Designer's ability to create an emotionally impactful Design?"