Articulating why a design is good is always a challenge.
Even the veterans sometimes struggle to find the words!
Luckily, there are a number of common sets of design principles that provide practical starting points for analyzing designs and expressing what’s successful or unsuccessful about them.
While senior designers tend to internalize these principles through years of practice, for everyone else, it’s helpful to have a quick reference you can open up when it’s time to review. This post is meant to provide that reference.
It’s important to note that design principles are not immutable laws of nature; they’re rules of thumb that tend to result in better work.
Think of them as suggestions from a trusted mentor: you should probably take their advice, at least until you’re very confident in your own skills and experience.
The following five sets of principles are the ones I’ve turned to the most in my decade of creating digital products. They aren’t a silver bullet for every scenario you’ll face, but they’re tried and true and have been useful for me.
I hope you find them useful too.