Goodman, E. 2012. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Deliverable. interactions, September/October 2012.
Many of interactions‘ readers undoubtedly live and breathe deliverables, but here’s a quick definition for those who are still innocent: A deliverable is a document created by one group of people that is then passed to another. Hence the name. Like a parcel, a deliverable has a sender and a receiver. In commercial interaction design, the sender is likely a designer or consultant; the receiver, the developer or client. As a primary form of communication between key players in the creation of a technological product, deliverables can have very high stakes.
As a print graphic designer, I never heard the word. I dealt with comps, flats, or proofs. I started hearing requests for deliverables only when I started working as an interaction designer.
I didn’t like it at all.