A set of guiding statements that capture the values and priorities a team commits to when making design decisions. Effective principles are specific enough to resolve real trade-offs and distinctive enough to belong only to that product or organization — not generic platitudes like 'be simple' that could apply to anything.
Common contexts
- Onboarding a new designer who needs to make autonomous decisions without approval overhead
- Resolving a stakeholder disagreement about whether to add a feature by checking it against agreed principles
- Writing design system documentation so component decisions are self-explanatory to future contributors
Use when
When a team is growing, making frequent trade-off decisions, or struggling with inconsistent output across designers. Principles are most useful when written during a focused workshop with real product scenarios used as test cases.
Avoid when
Don't define principles in a vacuum or by committee consensus alone — principles that no one uses to reject a bad idea aren't principles, they're decorations on a wall.
A useful design principle is one that would cause at least one person in the room to disagree with it — if everyone agrees immediately, it's probably too vague to be actionable.
Real-world examples
- Dieter Rams's ten principles of good design guided Braun's product design philosophy and heavily influenced Apple's design approach under Jony Ive.
- Airbnb's design principles—'Unified, Universal, Iconic, and Conversational'—guide product decisions and are embedded into their design system and team culture.
- Google's Material Design is built around principles like 'Material is the metaphor' and 'Motion provides meaning,' shaping how their entire product ecosystem behaves visually.