How to set up design principles with your team (remotely)?
Set-up design principles with your team to have a clear baseline for designing a product.
I’ll help you set up your design principles (DPs)
Google ‘Design Principles’ (DPs), and you will find countless articles. Basically, Design principles express your shared vision for great products & services. This article will not explain what DPs are in a broad sense; I’m just going to help you set them up — also during Covid times. Want to learn more about DPs first? Read Anton’s article — He goes in-depth in explaining what they are and why you need them.
Here’s the gist:
Design principles express your shared vision for great products & services.
Design Principles of your product should tell you, your team and stakeholders which directions you should be going in the tough choices. They should focus on what distinct your product from others, how it feels and what is important for the business and your customers. — Anton Badashov
Design principles aren’t set in stone...
As a former-consultant (Deloitte Digital), ex-frontend, and current UX designer (ABN AMRO), I’ve helped many organizations structuring their DPs because I’ve experienced the pain when teams don’t have clear DPs.
The most crucial pain point is when teams don’t have a clear shared vision, it allows for countless strategic, functional and technical discussions (which could have been avoided by clear DPs).
DPs aren’t set in stone. DPs should give you a baseline for the future. If the DPs aren’t reflecting the product anymore, change it.
The everyday battle between Dev vs. UX vs. UI vs. PO
Imagine this: You’re starting a brand-new project. Brand-new idea. Going strong with customer research, market research, figuring out the sweet spot of viability and desirability, and not even focusing on feasibility. The world is your oyster. You can do whatever you want. Awesome. You keep going until it’s time actually to start building the solution and focus on details. Suddenly, the discussions between you and the rest of your team members start…
Imagine you're in a design discussion about the User Onboarding with your team.. Recognize this?Developer Malik: "No. We can't skip asking the user to fill in field 'repeat password'. This is crucial for security. What if they mistype the password?"UI designer Umi: "It's a hassle to retype this. If they forget, users can just go through 'forget password process'. It's just not user friendly. I don't want the user to fill in a whole questionnaire before they can onboard! First impression should be seamless."UI designer Aïshah: "Okay. Compromise. Let's just build in a functionality that they can 'show password' as they're typing?"Developer Mikael: "Ugh. That will take even more time to build. PO? Do we have time?"Product owner Aline: "The sprint is already so full. We won't make it… But we need to build a lovable product.. What to do…?"
DPs help you say ‘no’.
What if I told you, you could use DPs to help you say ‘no’. Or at least make sound decisions based on prepared DPs you made with your team. Then you can say:
“Hey. Remember our design principles? To adhere to them, the solution is x.”
Okay. Spoiler. I’ll spill the beans upfront. What could have been ‘x’?
One agreed-upon DP could have been: “Security, even over convenience.” This means ‘Convenience’ is still important, however, not as important as ‘Security’.
In this case, UI designer Umi would need to adhere to this promise too. Therefore, their argument to ‘skip the repeat-password field’ is weak.
Aïshah’s suggested solution is adhering to the DP ‘security, even over convenience’, and thus would be the way to go.
It will also give the PO more reason to prioritize the ‘show password’ functionality in the sprint.
And the best part is, every team member attended the DP workshop, so killing those discussions should be easy. I’m going to help you set up for defining your DPs.
What makes a good design principle?
Good design principles help you say no.
✓ “Security, even over convenience”
✕ “We are trustworthy”Good design principles are memorable
✓ “Good design is as little design as possible”
✕ “Design with an intention to conserve effort and produce as little material output as is necessary to accomplish your goals”Good design principles aren’t truisms.
✓ “Don’t solve every edge case”
✕ “Make users happy”
Good design principles are broadly applicable.
✓ “Solicit and respect user feedback”
✕ “Use an 8 pixel grid”Also..They should..
· Educate
· Have a point of view
· Differentiate, counterbalance, or reassure
· Be authentic and genuine
· Be practical and actionable
Example of “even over” statements
· (Choice A) even over (Choice B)
· Accessibility even over aesthetics
· User preference even over business preference
Here are some examples of good DPs
Google Material Design:
1. Material is the metaphor
2. Bold, graphic, intentional
3. Motion provides meaningMedium
1. Direction over Choice
2. Appropriate over Consistent
3. Evolving over Finalized
Defining the DPs is a team effort. I already hear developers saying, “I rather code than be in another meeting.” But trust me. Developers want to be here. Why? They can help shape the rules for development. It will reduce backtracking. And better yet, help decide which arguments can persuade stakeholders in business/time management discussions.
This is not only beneficial for the development and UX team but also an opportunity for strategists and visionaries to communicate what their moonshot is.
At the end of the day, we are moving as a team in the same direction. And... The fun thing is, you can and will identify the gaps of differences in opinions in this session. Hold on to your hats!
How to create design principles with your team. Let’s go to our whiteboard.
Of course, we can do this ‘live’ on whiteboards and post-its too. Whatever you prefer. But for the sake of remote working (hello, corona), I’ll show you how you can set up the DP session remotely.
1. Preparation
1.1 Arrange a facilitator for the session. If you are part of the team, you are not the facilitator. If you really need to pick someone from your team, choose the strategic/service/ or UX designer. Someone with ‘facilitator experience.’
1.2 Prepare (online) whiteboard and set up the board as the example below. You can pre-define the contrary duo-words yourself. When it’s time for the session, the team can add more (optional). Good options are mural.co or miro.com.
1.3 Write contrary terms on post-its — By challenging your team to either choose one of the contrary terms, it will stir discussions. It will allow team members to voice why they would choose a contrary-word. You can also add different product goals as opposite words (e.g., ‘mass production vs. unique’, ‘competition vs. cooperation’). Also, it will challenge them to explain what their thought process is. This way, you can early on identify differences in perspectives of different team members. It’s good to have these discussions early and decide upon DPs here. This will make collaboration easier and can ‘kill’ future discussions because we are already on the same page beforehand :)
Examples
· Informative vs. Nudging
· Passive vs. Proactive
· Idealistic vs. Realistic
· Direct vs. Metaphorically
· Everyday vs. Special
· Suddenly vs. Gradually
· Convenience vs. Security
· Human vs. TechnologyNote: Make sure you are avoiding words like ‘safe vs. unsafe’. You need to stir up discussions and allow your team mates to elaborate.
1.4 Draw a slider between the contrary duo-terms
Let the discussions.. uh session.. begin...
2. In-Session
Note: Based on a group of 5 persons, schedule 2-3 hours for the session.2.1 Have a facilitator present — I’m not gonna lie. DP session will spark some awkward moments. Understand that some team members have less experience substantiating their arguments. It’s the facilitator’s job to streamline the discussions.
2.2 Offer team members the opportunity to add contrary words (optional). When you prepared the session, you collected contrary duo-words on post-its. During the session, you can ask your team members to add their own contrary duo-words. Discuss which of these words is valuable to add to the discussion.
2.3 Together with your team, decide where on the slider represent your ideal brand — There will be discussions on where to put the slider. Really? Yes. Really. People are different and don’t think alike. Different stakeholders have different perspectives on things, especially on what they think the goal of a product should be (e.g., ‘informative vs. nudging,’ or ‘passive vs. pro-active’). Hear everyone out.
2.4 Take the time to discuss — Allow team members to use previous experience and examples to back up their choices. If your team can’t align on where to put the slider between contrary words, then think of new words that embody the message you’re trying to send across.
2.5 Analyze which terms are unclear and create new words to best present your brand. Most likely, you are defining design principles on the spot.
2.6 Choose the best words by dot voting — Use stickers and give each member 3 ‘votes.’ It will be clear which words need the most attention and need to be added to the final design principles.
Rome wasn’t built in a day…
3. Refinement
3.1 Use the best-voted words to form (max. 5) design principles sentences— Max 5 because DPs should be memorable, and members should be able to recite them at any time. Asking them to remember five sentences is already pushing it. Don’t forget to check the list of ‘what makes good design principles,’ and ask yourself whether your refined DPs fit the requirements of ‘good DPs.’ E.g., Do they help you say ‘no’? Are they memorable? Are you sure they aren’t truisms? Is there a chance they might be misinterpreted?
3.2 Iterate and refine the design principles, and add descriptions if needed. After the discussions, some contrary words will have taken more time than others. This means that these words are those sparking the most discussion and will also spark most future discussions. Focus on these words and implement them in your design principles. This doesn’t mean the other words aren’t important. Embed them in the design principles or the descriptions.
Refinement might take some days. Don’t worry if this takes more time than expected. Better to do this well, rather than rushed. It will be your baseline :)
This, I promise you...
4. Promise
Every team member should embrace these DPs. Go ahead and let everyone put their signature to promise they will adhere to the DPs. You can easily do this with the ‘pen tool’ in mural.co.
It might look silly asking people the put their signature below design principles. However, it will definitely resonate with them. And they will also double-check whether they really stand behind them. If not? Iterate and refine.
Sneak peek into my team’s design principles.
So, I told you how to set up design principles. But how do you know mine are any good? Here are some DP examples of a team developing a tool that is protecting a user’s digital assets.
1. Without user trust, we have no business value — We need to do whatever it takes to gain and protect user’s trust in our productExample: What if 'sales' wants to embed ads in the tool? Sales could say it will boost revenue, but this is not in the interest of the user. So it will cancel that discussion.Also, if users start mistrusting the tool, they won't trust us with their digital assets, and we won't have users anymore, and thus no business value.--2. Privacy & Security, even over convenience — We won’t jeopardize privacy and security, for the sake of easy user friendliness. We will communicate this simply and clearly to the users.Example: What if the developer wants to add 'repeat password' field, while the UX designer does not want to add yet another field. Developer would say it boosts security that the password has been typed in correctly, while the UX designer says it's not boosting ease-of-use. The compromise could be adding a 'show password' functionality. This will secure that the password has been typed correctly, ánd it will allow users to only fill it in once.Again, our product is about 'protecting users' digital assets'. So, that's why we chose privacy and security, even over convenience. It does not mean 'convenience' is not important; it's saying it's not as important as privacy & security.--3. Explicit user consent, even over automation — We become proactive, only with explicit user permission.Example: It would be cool if we use user's data to output cool insights about the user's spending behavior. However, we don't want to jeopardize that the user thinks we are analyzing their data without their consent. So, this DP requires us to communicate clearly, and ask clear consent. We could embed this in a simple 'terms and conditions', and offer the user to change their preferences later in their 'settings'.--4. Don’t make the tech engine visible to the user — Offer users innovative features with a familiar feeling. Always coat the technical engine.Example: I bet you saw 'error codes' in your life before. Even the simple "Error 404" must not be unfamiliar to you. However, what if your grandma saw this error for the first time. I assume she wouldn't understand it. Thus, this is an example of showing the 'technical under-the-hood' to the user. We don't want this. Therefore, we need to invest time in UX copy and make everything in the tool 'familiar', so the user understands it.
The main takeaway…
Please take your time discussing and agreeing upon DPs to avoid future discussions, which will slow down your development process. Also, it will help you navigate to a clear end goal with your team.
PS. Always save the DPs somewhere where everyone can read them back, like Confluence or on a physical wall in the room.
Quick overview of the steps
1. Prep
· Arrange a facilitator
· Prepare (online) whiteboard
· Write contrary duo-terms on post-its
· Draw a slider between the contrary terms2. In-Session
· Together with your team, decide where on the slider represent your ideal brand· (Optional) Offer team members the opportunity to add contrary words· Take the time to discuss. Allow team members to use previous experience and examples to back up their choices.· Analyze which terms are unclear and create new terms to best present your brand. Most likely you are defining design principles at the spot· Choose the best words by dot votingNote: Based on a group of 5 persons, schedule 2-3 hours for the session.3. Refinement
· Use these words to form (max. 5) design principles· Iterate and refine the design principles, and add descriptions if needed.4. Promise
· Every team member should embrace these DPs. Go ahead and let everyone put their signature to promise they will adhere to the DPs.
Special thanks to.. Shauna Jin, Lisette Koppelman, Martijn Zwart, Lennard Gog
