Design Principles

When to use it

Use this tool to define the key unifying elements of your solution that all decisions can be measured against.

What’s the purpose

Design principles emerge as you move through the design process. They help you make better decisions by aligning everyone around the fundamental characteristics of your solution and provide a good anchor point to ensure that you stay on track to meet your project goals.

How to do it

Begin by reviewing the themes that emerged in your research findings.
Look for any unifying elements that you can pull out as themes across your findings. Do a quick brainstorm to create positive words or statements that capture those themes.
Now, vote on the statements that resonate best with the fundamental principles of your design.
Using the inspiration box in step 4a, begin crafting your first level design principles in step 4b. Once you have as many as you can think of, vote on the top six.
Lastly, refine your final design principles by giving each one a title, a short description and a visual illustration to bring it to life and make sure everyone can understand them.

Helpful tips

Creating your design principles is best done with a team of stakeholders to ensure that a diverse group if designers contribute to the direction.
Keep design principles up to date as you move through the project. Sometimes a shift in direction can occur and that’s okay, but make sure to capture any new unifying elements in this template.

Using this method in your day-to-day work

When you’re working as a team around a common goal, design principles help to keep everyone on the same track. They are particularly useful for convergent thinking when you need to align on direction, make decisions and choose a path forward. By making the effort to find shared perspective on these principles as a team, you can use them as an anchor point to make later decisions quicker and easier to navigate.