Output
Statements capturing the intent of a new design without specifying the solution.
What you get
- A set of statements, summarised from discovery work, that distill the user goals and communicate the key characteristics of the product or service to a wide variety of stakeholders, including clients, colleagues and team members.
Use when
- You need a concise summary of discovery work.
- Design and implementation teams need to reference discovery work without knowing the detail.
- You want to ensure that user needs are used to shape and guide the idea-generation process.
- You need to keep complex, multi-stakeholder projects moving together with a coherent vision of what we hope to achieve.
Design principles are not
- KPIs – Key performance indicators define measurable impacts of a successful user experience.
- Rules – Design principles should not attempt to impose rules. Instead, they should be concise summaries of intent that guide solutions.
- Specifications – Design principles should never include specifics of a solution. They may include guidance on what is likely to contribute to a good experience (such as ‘mobile only’ or ‘mobile first’).
Tips
Combine best practice design principles, like ‘be accessible’ and ‘be usable’ with project-specific principles.
Key terminology
Discovery activities: Project activities (including research) that aim to uncover insights and explore customer lives, needs and contexts.
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