Imagine building a house one room at a time, without blueprints. You decide to build a kitchen, but then realize you forgot the bathroom, so you tack it on later. Then comes a bedroom above the kitchen. The result? A nonfunctional, chaotic mess.
You would never build a house without a solid foundation and blueprints, so why build digital products that way?. As a product owner or manager, it is your job to ensure products are built on a solid foundation, and that begins with organizing design documents.
What Are Design Documents?
Think of design documents as the source files that inform your final product and its assets. They act as a mood board that sets the stage for every point in development.
These critical documents often include:
• Wireframes
• UX flows
• UI comp pages
• User task outlines
• User and stakeholder interview notes
You use these documents to communicate every project detail—from typography and button colors to other design inputs—to everyone who touches the project.
The SEO of Teamwork: Consistency is Key
Because design documents touch every department—design, development, and business—it is crucial that every team can understand them easily. However, these groups often speak their own languages.
The key value of well-organized design documents is that they provide a consistent framework for all teams. When your documents communicate in terms everyone understands, you avoid development snags as the project passes from team to team.
This success hinges on consistent nomenclature. It might seem minor, but consider a simple form element:
• A developer might call it a dropdown.
• A designer might call it a selector.
• Another developer might call it a select box.
If your documents don’t agree on a name, your teams waste valuable time deciphering what is being referred to,. Your nomenclature must be so airtight that a new designer could step into the project tomorrow and immediately follow the logical structure.