How to Estimate UX
Have you ever been asked to do design work in an unrealistic timeframe?
I’d be surprised if 100% of the designers reading this didn’t answer with a resounding “yes.” This scenario always puts us in a difficult spot: we want to be helpful, but we also don’t want to compromise design quality.
Properly estimating the design time needed for any UX effort can be a significant asset to your team. If you’re not currently doing it you should seriously consider so, because implementing this practice into your process can make a lasting impact on your team’s effectiveness.
Why?
Estimating helps increase productivity because it empowers your team to:
- Communicate design team needs with data rather than guesses
- Set project team expectations on UX deliverables
- Build in time for user research and other design activities
- Set realistic timelines that are more achievable
Ultimately, estimating is a tool that can help ensure project success, while saving you and your team from working nights and weekends.
What?
The goal of estimating is to approximate the number of pages or states in an experience you will need to create and then put time estimates against each.
This may sound like a daunting task, but with solid requirements and a clear design concept, it’s entirely possible.
Also, the more that you do it the better and faster you will get.
What types of projects?
Generally speaking, if you’re working on an iteration of an existing product or website, and all work can be broken down easily into sprints where each check of the work can be launched independently, then you probably don’t need this level of estimation.
Detailed estimates are helpful for longer-term initiatives that could span months.
Why not assign points in scrum?
Lets address a few questions that might come to mind.
Designers often work on multiple scrum teams, and that can make it difficult to calibrate with each of these teams. Hours are a known quantity to all.
“If I can do an estimate without thinking through all the details, why should I use this method?”
By breaking an estimate down to the page or state level it is much clearer to the whole team and leadership why design work will take the amount of time it needs to be effective. It shifts the cross-functional discussion from “can’t it be done faster” to “lets adjust the scope or timeline.”
Who?
The designers who will do the work are the ones who need to estimate, not their managers or project leads.
Managers and leads can help and guide as needed, but should not dictate the hours needed to complete the work.
Estimates can be done for each role on the project: interaction design, visual design, content strategy, research, etc.
When?
When is the right time to do an estimate?
Now, this part is very important, because if you do it too soon then it can be fairly inaccurate.
The best opportunity to do an estimate is when you have a shared understanding of the scope of work across the team. In some cases, this is when requirements are written and reviewed with the team.
Ideally, you have also explored high level UX concepts, validated with customers and have agreed on a design direction.
How?
There is no single way to do an estimate, but as mentioned above, the goal is to get as detailed as possible.
For example, lets say you want to design a simple messaging app with the following requirements.
As a user, I want to:
- Send messages to any phone number.
- Include text, photos or videos in my messages.
- See the time and date of the messages.
- Be able to access all messages I have sent or received.
- Be able to delete messages.
- Control whether I receive alerts when a new message arrives.
- Determine the method of notification of a new message.
- Be able to search my messages.
Now that you understand the requirements for the app, here are some steps you can take that will help you fill in all the blanks:
Step 1:
Identify all impact areas, sections, pages and states for each of them. A way to help you identify the amount of work needed is to think through the states needed for the chunks of work (i.e. is there an empty state, are there multiple steps in the process, etc.).
Step 2:
Then, do an estimate of the number of hours you think it will take to complete each state. A good rule of thumb is 2–6 hours, depending on the complexity of the page/state. These hours include initial drafts, review meetings, design/content iteration, pattern creation, functional annotations, error handling, coordination with Marketing/Development/etc. This is not an exact science, but will help give you a good ballpark. Some will be less, some will be more.
Step 3:
Ensure you estimate for each phase and discipline as needed on the project. Include time for other UX tasks, such as user research and iteration appropriately.
Step 4:
Share it with the project team and stakeholders. Adjust expectations of delivering design if necessary. We often find that partner teams really appreciate the estimates because it helps them plan their work as well and the project overall to run more smoothly.
Final thoughts
- Prioritize the work in a way that will enable the team to most effectively think through the design. For example, you can’t design how you would search messages if you haven’t yet designed how you view messages.
- Do your best to chunk your work up into meaningful groups that can be delivered in a sprint.
- If you are working on multiple projects, then your “hours per sprint” should be decreased based on the number of other projects you are working on. This will help show teams the amount of work that can be accomplished during each sprint and for the release overall.
- Include some buffer time in your estimate for unexpected changes and iteration.
- Usually, it is easiest for UX designers to estimate first and then Visual Designers and Content Strategists to use the UX estimate as a basis to complete theirs.
- You can find the template here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BxWwxWZj7YWhabLXUWbzay64qXMPzKr99lOt2n6YuAo. Feel free to copy and reuse!
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