Our Design Manifesto
These high-level principles guide our design culture, our design decisions, and our hiring decisions.
When I was first brought onto the product team, I created a goal for myself — to change our culture into a design-driven one. The most glaring misconception I knew I needed to address was the misconception by others that design is not only something to be done at the end, once decisions have been made, in order to make those decisions look aesthetically pleasing. I had to show why design was critical to the decision-making process within product development, prove why it was valuable to involve design early and often, and communicate my insights and decisions effectively.
But initially I was overwhelmed — being invited to every meeting, being asked to make every decision, and having no maker time to let creativity flow. I’m sure any designer can sympathize that when you get caught up in the weeds deciding on details or when you’re context-switching all the time, it’s hard to remember why you’re making each decision in the first place.
So to bring some calm to the storm, I wrote four principles to align our team and bring greater transparency to my process to my colleagues. These eventually evolved into our design manifesto, principles that guide our culture, our design decisions, and our hiring decisions.
Here goes:
