New to UX? Here are 11 UX design principles to live by

If you’re like me at the time of writing this post and that is you’re new to the world of UX/UI design, at some point you’ll want to consider the principles you will adhere to when working in a team or flying solo on projects.

What are design principles, why do you need them?

That’s a great question and I’m no expert so let’s take it from a trusted source such as IDF and agree that, ‘design principles are widely applicable laws, guidelines, biases and design considerations which designers apply with discretion.’

Ok that makes sense, so if you’re setting out for yourself or working in a team I think it’s a sensible idea to develop a set of principles so that you and others can rely on a shared understanding of what good design looks like for a product and/or a service.

Without a map how will you know you’re heading in the right direction? It’s important to stay on the right design path so you can be a springboard for innovation for yourself and others.

Here are the 11 principles I plan to live by as I begin my journey as a UX/UI designer.

It would be important to note here that these principles will most likely evolve over time (as I think they should) and are probably more specific to the UX and human psychology side of things as opposed to being related to any UI or graphic principles. (That could be a future post)

The order of these principles is of no significance. Also, these principles aren’t uniquely my own. I’ve researched and consolidated my list based on what I believe are the most important and come up with my own titles and expanded on them with supportive information.

1. Design for least possible effort — The “principle of least effort “essentially states that people will do the least amount of work to get something done. This can apply to the amount of thought, time, energy or even keystrokes — at the end of the day every human prefers the path of least resistance — UX Planet. I chose to adopt this principle because it just makes sense from an everyday lackadaisical perspective. Nobody on this planet would logically do something the hard way if there was an alternative and easier way. I haven’t finished his book yet but I also chose this as I believe it aligns with Steve Krug’s principle and book Don’t Make Me Think. If a user needs to think about something on the page then it’s already too complicated. Designs should be as instinctive and natural as possible.
2. Engage emotions — This principle made me stop and think for a minute because I wasn’t sure if it was a positive or negative thing to ‘engage’ people’s emotions. Initially, I was thinking about it like it was a manipulative thing such as in the way people claim advertisers manipulate our emotions, which I suppose is true so didn’t I want to take on a principle that would have a negative connotation. However, since reading this article on Toptal, I realise and agree that ‘interaction with any product produces an experience (emotion) whether it had UX or not.’ So we’re not “tugging at heartstrings” emotional, but more eliciting an emotional response in respect to what a user has just accomplished. So it seems UX design is all about emotions and they are unavoidable, so this principle should really be labelled ‘engage positive emotions’ because that’s what we’re here to ensure. We want users to get the most out of whatever product or service they’re interacting with at any given point in time.
3. Dare to be different — Actually, I did add this to this list from my own thoughts but I don’t think it’s a typical UX principle. It’s more of a ‘way of life’ mentality. Don’t conform to the norm. Celebrate the fact that you are unique and that you have a contribution to make to this world. We all have our own personal style and tastes when it comes to fashion, music, food, colours etc so apply that to your designs. Don’t just copy what other people are doing because it’s safe and easy. Push the envelope and ask yourself, what if this thing looked like this, or worked that way instead? Embrace things when they don’t go to plan because that’s when little shards of creativity show themselves. True story, I was working on a Figma file with a fellow student one day and we manage to make apply an interaction effect to the component so that it flipped and spun in a really unique way. It looked really cool and we joked about how we might have invested some sort of new transition effect. The next day I tested the interaction and it wasn’t working, when I asked my fellow student what happened she said she had removed it because the rest of the team probably won’t have liked it as it was a mistake. So basically, don’t worry about what others think because you could be onto something new and you don’t even know it.
4. Be caring and kind — This should just be a universal human principle, right? I added it here because UX and Human-centred design (HCD) go hand-in-hand. If you’ve read up on HCD you know it’s all about building a deep empathy with the people you’re designing for, so for me it makes sense to focus that empathy on being caring and kind at the same time. Consider people’s context, what issues they might be having in their live external or extra to the problem you’re designing for. Really ask and care how people are going when you meet a stakeholder for the first time or you meet a participant for a user test Don’t skip corners because it will be easier for you or your design team and means you can knock off earlier for the day. Go the extra mile and do what needs to be done for the users. That sort of kindness and consideration for your users is what will ultimately pay off
5. Listen to data-informed design — Like most things in life, going with assumptions over facts is going to make you look like a big stupid ass-face. (That’s how the saying goes right?) Similarly, in design to solve a problem statement if you’re just going to working with assumptions you’re going to have a bad time. There are two primary types of data usually available: quantitative and qualitative data. For example, survey results are considered quantitative yet if you were to interpret a bar graph from a question you asked in the survey as truth without validating that truth through qualitative research and analysis then you’re most likely going to end up make data-driven decisions as opposed to data-informed decisions. It’s too early for me to say but there are several articles, like this one from Adobe, on the web discussing the differences between data-driven vs data-informed and which is better or when you should apply each approach. All I’m saying is that you’re not the end-user, you need to leverage data to not going guide your work but help justify your decisions once you’ve made a design a certain way.
6. Tell stories — Stories are the way we connect with each other and the world around us. Stories help us communicate our core values, beliefs and cultural understandings and arguably we’ve been doing so as a human species since we first came into existence. Stories help us recall important information more easily, think about it if you were stuck in a PowerPoint presentation at work wouldn’t you much rather be at the cinema watching a movie? Sure, the cinema is a much more relaxing place than an office, plus you get to eat popcorn and choc-tops but really you’re there to engage with the story of the film. Also, we’ve grown up with stories our whole lives so the basic structure is naturally engaging. We all know stories start with a beginning (which could be our user’s problem), the middle (the UX design process full of challenges and conflict) & the inevitable end (hopefully with a positive ending and a successfully deliverable project). Our users are the main characters who we need to develop into personas by understanding their pains, goals & motivations in life and in relation to the problem we’re solving.
7. Engage with real users — It may seem obvious but it’s important to connect with the actual people whom you’re designing, the real people with the real problems who are the real users you’re engaging with. I believe this also ties back in with tip #5, but making assumptions about what users need or want won’t get you anywhere. Assumptions are just hypotheses until you validate them. If you’re simply sitting at your work desk, assuming your design will work a certain way because that’s how other apps work, or that’s how I would do it, then you’re not engaging with real users and not focused on finding a real solution.
8. Plan for mistakes — According to this article from Ploy Buraparate, even with the best, most wonderful, beautiful, delightful, and amazingly designed product, there’s one thing that will always be true: Users make mistakes. I believe planning for mistakes means accepting variable input from users, translating that input to meet your requirements, defining boundaries for input, and providing clear feedback to the user. In context, this would mean giving an online shopper visual feedback that an item they’re engaging with is out of stock and will plan to be restocked by a certain date. People don’t want to get to the checkout cart to discover this information as not only would it unexpected but outright annoying.
9. Design for everyone — I’m referring of course to accessibility & universal design. The latter is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design. Accessibility is the design of products, services, or environments for people of all abilities. This needs to be factored into the way we design digital products and apply the UI. Good accessibility is designed for the full spectrum of capabilities, as well as for context and environmental constraints. WCAG guidelines states for a design to accessible it must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable & Robust
10. Makes things useful and usable — I was speaking with a friend who works as a Senior UX designer, and he reiterated to me one day when we were discussing usability testing that designs should not only be usable, which is effectively what you’re looking for in a usability test but also useful to the person in a real-world context. You could develop a prototype solution that focuses on helping people teach their children the basics of algebra for example. If you asked a person to sit down and complete a certain number of tasks on the app to test the responsiveness, time to complete, and button interactions and the results were positive in your designs favour this could be considered successful to the usability of the design, but what if the person you’re testing with doesn’t have any children then how will you truly know how useful the app will be in real life. You should have conducted research prior to building the prototype to further understand the problem statement, hence why this potential solution is being tested but always remember to consider the broader context of the problem for your users.
11. Focus on business needs — Businesses are results-driven. Design thinking is user-focused. And yet, study after study shows that businesses that use design thinking are more successful. Businesses mostly care about specific outcomes, it’s fair to say they’re results-driven and not always focused on the specific needs of the users. So it’s our job to try and ensure the user experience and business goals go hand in hand. Ask yourself a few of these questions, does the project align with the goals of the business? Is there an appropriate budget? What’s the expected return on investment? Is the technology needed to power the research available or within reach?

Principle #5 — A nice venn diagram from Josh Porter, tweaked by Alastair Simpson summarising the need for data to help make great designs

That’s a wrap of my fairly long list of UX principles I plan to reference and adhere to as my design career grows. I’ll probably look back at this list in a few years and laugh as my naivety but will most certainly re-order prioritise this list as the market changes and my own knowledge and learning expands. Thanks for reading and please feel free to get in contact if you wish to provide any comments or suggestions, it would be great to hear from you!

Side note: I must say, I do have a thing for the number 11 ever since I watched this funny video of two Scottish men stuck in an elevator trying to use the voice recognition technology but failing to go anywhere because the system couldn’t understand their thick accents! The number pops up everywhere in my life now, I even have a shared album with a friend of all the times we see 11, so I’m glad I coincidentally came up with 11 principles for this post.