oh…the irony…

A checklist for a finished feature

When developing features for a product there is a lot of stuff going in. Even the simplest of user features can be complex in terms of organisation, technology or design. This list aims to help you out in finding out when something is shippable, making sure that you’ve covered every angle.

Feel free to add comments, suggestions & critique in the comments. This is a work in progress.

General

• Have we tested this on real users?
  - What evidence do we have that this feature is needed?
• Is there a business case in place to validate the success of the feature?
• Does your team seem happy with the quality of what they’ve produced?

Visual Design

• Is the design coherent with the rest of the product?
  - Are we consistent with brand guidelines?
• Are there any new design elements created as part of the feature?
  - Are they really needed?
• Does it work in direct sunlight and on the bus?

User Experience

• Have you tested the feature on all devices?
• Do you cater to the primary use case in a great way?
  - Will your mother understand this?
• Can you remove anything?
• Does the feature introduce any new UX patterns?
  - Are they really needed?
  - Have you seen this pattern anywhere else? Did you get it?
• Does it really work on mobile?
  - Are links touchable? UI elements big enough?
• Are there issues with page-folds on any screen?

Content

• Is the most important thing on top?
• Can I quickly scan the viewport and understand what’s going on?
  - Is there too much going on?
• Is the copy easy to understand and coherent with the rest of the product?
• Should it be sharable on social media?
  - Does the correct image & copy appear in the facebook, twitter, weibo, linkedin feed?
• Is the content SEO optimised? Can users find it!?
• Are we honest and kind?
• Does the images help in telling a story?
  - What does the image clarify for the user?
• Is everything up-to-date?

Technology

• Does it load fast enough?
• Does the code validate?
• Have we created style guides of all HTML elements?
• Is everything minified, compressed and optimised?
• Have you tested edge cases?
  - spikes in traffic, more content than expected…
• Does every state if the UI have a corresponding URL?
  - i.e. are hash-url:s implemented when needed?

Accessibility

• Is the content readable?
  - Contrast colours, text size, alt-attributes…
• Is the navigation accessible with only the keyboard?
  - Tab order, access keys…
• Does it work with text-to-speech software?

Organisation

• Does your colleagues know what you’re releasing?
  - Do they fully understand the impact in their workday that your feature will have?
  - Have you documented the workflow for creating, updating, deleting content for editors?
• Do you have clear answers to why you created & released this?

Tools & Metrics

• Are the relevant metrics implemented?
  What do you, as a PO/Stakeholder, need to know in order to measure success of the feature?
• Are all your internal tools hooked up to the feature?
  Statistics, error reporting, logs, feedback forms, search engines…

Inspiration for this list came from https://userium.com/ and http://lekman.fi/productownerchecklist/