Your design document contains all of the information your designer will need to know about your app or mobile game. It has everything from an executive summary that highlights the goals of the project, to mockups of the interface, to a plan for implementation. All of this information is integral to the design and development of the completed app. All of the ideas, mapping, details, and work that you have already done planning your app will go into this design document. Below are the sections that you can include and why they are necessary:
Executive Summary
This should be a brief overview of the entire project. You should be able to tell the reader what the app or game is all about in a couple of paragraphs. If you are planning a game that has a story, include it in the executive summary.
Purpose Statement
This section should be used to detail the necessary or the purpose of this app, its intended use, and target audience. It should also have some information about why you want to create the app and how you will measure whether or not it is living up to its purpose.
Wireframes
The wireframe is a series of diagrams that depict how users will progress through the app, including the screens they see and what they click on when they see these screens. This would likely be more complicated for a mobile game than for a productivity application, but it should be as detailed as possible since this will dictate how the developers or designers structure the final project.
Mockups
This section should be used to detail the necessary or the purpose of this app, its intended use, and target audience. It should also have some information about why you want to create the app and how you will measure whether or not it is living up to its purpose.
Media
Music, voices, sounds, and any other media that your app might use should be included here, as well as any necessary copyright information.
Implementation
This section will have a plan with actionable objectives, laying out how all of the information you’ve included in previous sections will be used to create the completed app. A schedule, budget, marketing plan, and the like will all find their home in the implementation section.
This summary is an oversimplification of design documents. Creating an effective design document can be time and resource intensive process that can include a lot of professionals “locked” in a room for long periods of time.
