Reference · Chapter 13
Seven Deliverables
The designer's deliverable set has expanded. Not contracted. Seven documents a system designer produces now, and what makes each one different from a traditional design artifact.
The shift
The old role: arrange the pixels, hand the file to engineering, watch for the fidelity loss, ship. The deliverable was a picture of what the user would see.
The new role: design the system that generates the pixels. Define the constraints it operates under. Specify the behavior it takes on the user's behalf. Write the rules it must follow, refuse to break, and surface on demand. The deliverable is a policy document. More like a constitution than a blueprint.
The designer is the person who writes the first draft of all seven, and the one who keeps them honest after launch.
The seven documents
- 01
Design and Brand System
Traditional version
A static component library and style guide.
Brand Contract TemplateNow
A living spec — the token set, component library, and brand rules — that the generative system draws from. Every assembled screen stays within the visual and tonal range the product is committed to. It runs. It does not sit in a Figma file.
- 02
Behavioral Contract
Traditional version
A brief description of the product in the PRD.
Constraint System TemplateNow
What the system will and will not do, in plain language, argued over by product, engineering, legal, and support. The PM owns it. It appears as a standing agenda item in every sprint review that touches any behavior the contract defines.
- 03
Confidence Policy
Traditional version
Nothing. This did not exist as a design artifact.
Now
The thresholds below which the system drafts rather than acts. Which confidence levels require human review before the output reaches the user. How the product's visual language communicates confidence to the user without a tooltip.
- 04
Refusal Catalog
Traditional version
A list of edge cases in a ticket somewhere.
Refusal Register TemplateNow
The cases where the product declines, escalates, or routes to a human. Four categories: capability, policy, confidence, scope. Each with a legible designed response. The most under-invested design artifact in consumer AI today and the best predictor of whether a product will be defensible in three years.
- 05
Audit Interface Spec
Traditional version
A settings page. Maybe a history tab.
Action Log SpecNow
How users review and correct what the agent did on their behalf. Five minimum requirements per action log entry: timestamp, plain-language description, confidence signal, reversal mechanism, escalation flag. The audit interface is where trust is either earned or lost at scale.
- 06
Evaluation Rubric
Traditional version
Success metrics defined after launch, often as retention and engagement.
Now
How the team measures trust delta, surprise rate, and walk-away rate. Shipped alongside the feature, not after. Not a one-time usability study. A living measurement system that runs continuously and surfaces drift before the metrics show it.
- 07
Research Synthesis
Traditional version
A research report produced before launch. Filed after.
Now
The ongoing record of how users are actually experiencing the product. Acceptance rates, surprise rates, walk-away rates, trust delta. Feeds back into every other artifact on this list. The designer who is not maintaining this is not seeing the product the user sees.
What this means for design leadership
Three things effective design leaders do in this transition. Making the system-level tradeoff legible in the room: naming it when it is the design being discussed, not after the feature has shipped. Building the evaluation rubric before the product rather than retrofitting success metrics to whatever the product happened to produce. And hiring for the new deliverables: the designer who can write a clear Behavioral Contract is a more valuable hire than the designer with the best-looking portfolio.
The interview should test for the ability to specify behavior in language and to say, in the room: this is where I would refuse to ship.
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