UX Project Canvas Template
Visualize the big picture of your UX and design projects
About the UX Project Canvas template
What is a UX project canvas?
Inspired by Alexander Osterwalder's 2005 business model canvas, the project canvas will help your team visualize the big picture of your UX and design projects, providing a convenient structure that holds all of your important data.
This project canvas was created by Jim Kalbach, author and UX designer who has worked with Citrix, Elsevier Science, and other large international companies. According to Kalbach, the project canvas is designed to make an otherwise dry topic—defining a project—lively and engaging. It allows your team to visualize key elements defining a project in a single grid.
Advantages of using a UX project canvas
The UX project canvas is an innovative tool that helps transform an idea into a project plan, and stimulates collaboration and communication between all involved parties (project team, sponsor, stakeholders, etc.). The clear one-page overview provides insight into interactions between the different project topics (scope, time, cost, risk, team, etc.).
Unlike alternative models, the project canvas is a simple interface. There are few startup costs, and employees can easily be brought up to speed to start using the canvas quickly.
When to use a UX project canvas
The UX project canvas is an effective tool whether your team is working on a new UX or design project, or wants to structure an existing one. The project canvas is useful for project managers, designers, content managers, UX/UI specialists, developers, and client representatives. You can use the canvas whenever you need to quickly bring a teammate up to speed on a project, plan a new project, consult with stakeholders, or iterate.
Here are the five factors of a successful project canvas:
What is the nature of the project? Describe it in as much detail as you can.
Why do you need to complete this project? Tie the project to your business goals and team objectives.
Who do you need to help you complete the project? List any stakeholders or subject matter experts to consult with throughout the project.
When should the project be completed? What does the timeline look like?
How do you plan on getting the project done? List steps throughout the process.
Create your own UX project canvas
Miro’s whiteboard tool is perfect for creating and sharing your project canvas. Get started by selecting this quick and easy UX Project Canvas template.
Get started with this template right now. It’s free
Presentation
At some point during your career, you’ll probably have to give a presentation. Presentations typically involve speaking alongside an accompanying slide deck that contains visuals, texts, and graphics to illustrate your topic. Take the stress out of presentation planning by using this presentation template to easily create effective, visually appealing slides. The presentation template can take the pressure off by helping your audience stay focused and engaged. Using simple tools, customize a slide deck, share slides with your team, get feedback, and collaborate.
Stakeholder Map
A stakeholder map is a type of analysis that allows you to group people by their power and interest. Use this template to organize all of the people who have an interest in your product, project, or idea in a single visual space. This allows you to easily see who can influence your project, and how each person is related to the other. Widely used in project management, stakeholder mapping is typically performed at the beginning of a project. Doing stakeholder mapping early on will help prevent miscommunication, ensure all groups are aligned on the objectives and set expectations about outcomes and results.
RAID Log
A RAID log is a project planning tool that focuses on four key areas: risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies. Risks are events that could have an adverse effect if they occur, assumptions are things you assume will happen to contribute to the project’s success (and that will have negative consequences if they don’t occur), issues are risks that have already occurred and had a negative impact on the project, and dependencies are things that must start or finish so your project can progress. RAID logs are often used when beginning a new project, but they’re also useful for promoting alignment and sharing status for projects that are already underway.
Kaizen Report
What makes a great company great? They know that greatness needs to be fostered and maintained — meaning they never stop working to improve. If you’re one of those companies (or aspire to be), a kaizen report is an ideal tool. It creates a simple visual guide to continuous improvement activities on a team, departmental, and organizational level. Using a kaizen report approach, every employee in an organization audits their own processes and understands what they might have overlooked, making this a powerful tool for increasing accountability at all levels.
Newsletter
Whatever kind of business you are or product you create, it’s a smart idea to keep in touch with your current and potential customers and keep them up to speed — by spreading news, promoting events, and sharing custom content. Newsletters give you an effective way to do it. And this template is a fast, easy way to get started. Just choose the content you want to highlight, write the copy, and add any pictures or images you want to include. Then write your subject line and click send.
PEST Analysis
A big step in keeping your company on a secure path is to know how different elements and factors might affect you, in the near term and in the future. These include political, economic, social, and technological factors — and a PEST Analysis helps you identify and prepare for them. With this easy-to-use template, you can conduct a PEST Analysis, then use the results to shape your strategic planning, budget allocation, marketing, product updates, and organizational change initiatives.