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Design Principles

Design Principles are a set of brief, clear, and memorable guidelines that articulate the core values that should guide a team's design work.

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Design Principles are a set of brief, clear, and memorable guidelines that articulate the core values that should guide a team’s design work. They serve as an internal compass for making consistent, high-quality decisions, especially when there is no specific rule to apply.

What are Design Principles?

They are not prescriptive rules like “all buttons must be blue.” They are high-level values that help a team define what “good design” means for their specific product. They are the design team’s constitution.

A good set of design principles has these characteristics:

  • Memorable: Short, catchy, and easy to remember.
  • Actionable: They provide clear guidance for decision-making.
  • Differentiating: They reflect the unique personality and values of your product, not a list of generic platitudes.
  • Universal within the company: Although created by the design team, they should be understandable and applicable by everyone (PMs, engineers, marketing).

Famous Examples

  • Medium: “Direction over choice.” (Instead of giving the user 10 formatting options, guide them toward the best option).
  • Asana: “Enable users to focus on their work without distractions.” (This guides their focus on a clean and minimalist interface).
  • Google (Material Design): “Material is the metaphor,” “Bold, graphic, intentional,” “Motion provides meaning.”

Why are they important?

  • They facilitate autonomous decision-making: They empower individual designers to make consistent decisions without constantly having to ask a leader. When in doubt, a designer can ask: “Which of these options best aligns with our principles?”
  • They ensure consistency at scale: In large, distributed teams, principles are the glue that keeps the user experience coherent across different parts of the product.
  • They are the foundation of [[Design Critiques]]: They provide an objective criterion for evaluating work. Instead of saying “I don’t like it,” you can say “I’m not sure this solution aligns with our principle of ‘Clarity above all.’”
  • They help onboard new members: They are a quick and effective way to convey the team’s design culture and values to new hires.

How are they created?

Creating design principles is a team exercise, not an individual task for a leader.

  1. Gather inspiration: Research the design principles of other companies you admire. What do you like about them? What resonates with your team?
  2. Conduct a team workshop:
    • Values brainstorming: Ask each team member to write down adjectives or phrases that describe how the product should feel. Should it be “fun” or “professional”? “Fast” or “thorough”?
    • Group and find themes: Use Affinity Mapping to group ideas and find recurring themes. These themes are the candidates for your principles.
  3. Draft the principles: For each theme, write a short, memorable phrase. Then, add a short paragraph explaining what that principle means in practice and what it does not mean.
    • Example:
      • Principle: “One step at a time.”
      • Description: “Our interface should guide users through complex processes by breaking them into small, manageable steps. We avoid overwhelming the user with too many options at once. This means we prefer a multi-step wizard over a form with 50 fields.”
  4. Get feedback and refine: Share the principles with the rest of the organization (product, engineering) to ensure they are clear and that everyone is aligned.
  5. Socialize them: Don’t let them die in a document. Print them. Put them on the wall. Make them the topic of a [[Design Critiques|critique]]. Make them part of the team’s daily language.

Mentor Tips

  • Less is more: A team can only remember and apply a limited number of principles. Aim for 3 to 6. If you have 10, you have none.
  • Avoid cliches: Principles like “Easy to use” or “User-centered” are not useful, because nobody would argue the opposite. A good principle forces you to make a choice and a sacrifice. “Efficiency for experts over ease for beginners” is a strong principle because it forces you to choose.
  • Make them visual: Assign an icon or illustration to each principle to make it even more memorable.
  • Use them or lose them: The only way design principles stay alive is by actively using them in daily conversations and decisions.

Resources and Guides

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