The best context in which we can start this content is to think about a young student who takes notes diligently in school. He diligently writes notes for all the subjects, and while he is preparing for the exams, we see that his notes are not just useful for him; they would be useful for the entire class sometimes. Have you come across such situations? Then you will know the importance of documentation.
Trends in the Industry
The current trends in the industry follow a fast-paced design process where clients need designs asap rather than the process behind it. We are in a trend where we want everything fast and of good quality. I really feel that there is a compromise in quality when things are delivered superfast, especially with UX design. Designers and even clients want to skip the most important parts of the design process. I am hearing recently a lot from the clients saying that
Taking interviews is time-consuming, and it is costing us. Let us go with a proto-persona. Ask AI to write a persona.
I have been an expert in this field for a long time; let me give you the data. Or use data from OpenAI.
Why to document: We can write at a stretch if needed towards the end. Take help from AI.
One thing clear from the current process is that we are going to lose our value, which we have with our brain, i.e., thinking. I like to be a person who uses AI when it is needed, not to the extent that it would do everything. Nowadays, blog writers take the help of AI tools to complete a full blog by providing their brain input and making AI finish their story. It is quick, it is awesome with data, and it is good with words. But it cannot have an impact for the sole reason that it is not humane. With time, we are going to see similar content written completely by an AI tool, and the credibility of the authors will go for a toss. Use AI if you feel you want to frame your sentences.
What is UX documentation?
The process of writing a step-by-step update of what all happened in a project is called UX documentation. It's like a design system for UX studies.
Big organizations want to do this documentation because they know its importance and can bear those costs, but small businesses and design agencies of smaller scale cannot do that. So they go for final documentation for handover or think and break their heads to prepare a case study for their own portfolio. I remember in one of my courses, students would come till the end of the course and have amazing UI designs, but to write a case study, it would take a long time. The problem was that there was no content available. They need to think and start from the beginning. This practice is taking place on a larger scale in the design industry now. On a smaller scale among the student community.
The only thing which can be documented in a UX process is Persona and competitive analysis. — UI UX Designer.
When I have interactions with my fellow designers, one thing that I also understand from them is that they also do not know what, how, or why to document in a UX process.
What to document?
Whatever you hear from anyone regarding the project, document it. Be it client interviews, secondary research, competitor research, or even usability testing, documenting everything is the best approach to start with.
One can document their entire UX and UI process according to the design thinking framework: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Write an Insights section in all the documentation work.
Design documentation template items
Empathize Stage: Document your user interviews and surveys and what insight you gained from them.
Define Stage: Create your user profiles, empathy maps, and customer journeys, and write what you feel about the users.
Ideation Stage: How did you approach solving the problem? What method did you use? Nowadays, the major problem that we see in the design industry is not using the process of UX to find a solution, but rather using the experience to solve it. In this case, we won't have anything to document. But the recommendation is that you do the UX-ideation process to solve the problems and document them.
Prototype: Document your flows, test your architecture, and describe how you identified edge cases. Write how you found the edge cases and document them.
Testing: You want to know what went wrong; document it properly so that the entire team will have knowledge about it. Usability test reports can also be added along with your insights.
How do I document?
The best and most free tool that you can use for documenting your projects is Notion. Learn about how you can create documentation on Notion with templates and publish it online.
Add a screenshot of your Digram screens: Make your document with more visuals; also, assist your findings with visuals.
Take a photo of the entire process that is going on. Be it interviews or a group discussion, take a photo and store it as per the project's notion.
Write parallel notes about your key learnings on every project. Improve your document by adding more illustrations, if possible. Make it like a case study or process documentation.
My documents are iterated a lot of times. Any document is built step by step; it evolves with time. But one must do it diligently.
Include your paper sketches to make the documentation more authentic.
Need for documentation
The major need for documentation is
It will give you an insight into the evolution of the entire product from the beginning and how it is currently.
It helps you understand your UX Design process, which will in turn help you tweak your UX process
Communicating easier with your clients and your team.
A single source of truth for the entire project in UX design.
Read through your documents to solve user problems. Create documentation of different standards for sending the link.
A design document helps the client understand how you arrived at these new solutions.
Conclusion
The design documentation is the most important aspect of the design process. But we don't see designers themselves documenting them due to a lack of time and dependency on AI to document them towards the end of the project. The use of AI assistance in-terms of sentence creation and descriptions would be a good idea to move forward with. One must document the entire process from the beginning to the end of the project so that it can be a historical and evidential proof of the entire process done by you, and it also becomes the point of understanding document for the clients and even for a case study.