Creating Design Principles
Design principles are the north star for any project. They provide a description for how a team approaches a product to a wide variety of stakeholders including clients, colleagues, and team members. Design principles articulate the fundamental goals that all decisions can be measured against and allow all of those stakeholders to move the product forward as a unified project. Mobify’s design principles are developed to provide teams with a way to gauge design decisions and to promote design thinking approach to problem solving. Each principle is an action item that can be asked in the form of a question allowing everyone to evaluate the outcome through a similar lens.
At Mobify we developed five design principles:
Be Human: Human-centred design is a creative approach to problem solving and the backbone of our work. It’s a process that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs. Human-centred design is all about building a deep empathy with the people you’re designing for.
Communicate Clearly: Communication is one of the foundational elements of a good design. It is essential for a positive user experience and for a successful interaction that truly benefits its owners. All types of designs are affected by the need for good communication in one way or another. This communication extends not only to the design but how we present our work. Our ideas are communicated clearly to our team to increase collaboration.
Deliver Value: We look at the value to the user and the value to the business and create a pragmatic approach to our designs to deliver value to both sides. Because value is subjective and based on stakeholders underlying expectations successful projects define KPIs ahead of design. Effective project value delivery requires an ongoing dialogue between all stakeholders to negotiate appropriate compromises and balance to the stakeholder views.
Keep it Simple: Simplicity is more complex than you probably think it is. To design in user-friendly tones, presenting all information and removing unnecessary details isn’t easy. In fact, many designers don’t manage to find the right mix between details and their presentation on the screen, which usually results in an information overkill and/or decreased usability. We strive to find the right balance and create usable, elegant and clean designs with simple layouts and interactions benefiting the business and the users.
Exhibit Craftsmanship: That which is beautiful is increasingly difficult to come by in a world where a premium is placed on speed, and things are made to be disposable. We don’t sacrifice real craftsmanship at the altar of expediency. We strive to create designs that are lovingly crafted, built with care and passion, and presented with the sort of pride that befits a marvellously well made design.
The design principles however, are part of creating a larger organization of design within Mobify. They are an important part and the outcome of a lot of work and discussion with the team and organization as a whole. We are going to discuss how we created the Principles and how we use them every day.
Mobify is a engineering first organization, started by engineers and a large part of the success has been on the back of engineering innovations. This is reflected in the processes and approach of how we build product and make decisions. When I started here there were three distinct groups of designers (Marketing, Product and Customer Success) and those designers were fragmented through different projects. So there were a few goals to develop the Design team within Mobify:
- Unify the design team through process and approach
- Bring Design to a equal level with Engineering in terms of priority within Mobify
- Promote Mobify Design to outside customers and design communities
Unifying The Design Team
The first step was getting the design team to identify as a team and understand where they wanted to go as an organization. We gathered everyone together in a room to discuss the perceptions of design within Mobify. We simply asked the team to describe how design was currently viewed by providing single words as descriptors. After some discussion the list was as follows:
Specialized
Crucial
Fractured
We Make things Pretty
Design is front end
Vague (design is sugar)
User Advocate
Ambassadors
After creating this list it was noted that there was a mix of positive and negative statements. The second list we generated was ‘how do we want to be perceived at Mobify?’ There was a lot more discussion and focus when discussing how we wanted to be as a team. This list was:
Equal (Validity)
Problem Solvers
Experts (Craft)
Leaders
Educators
Business Minded
Knowledgeable
Cohesive
Collaborative
Thinker
Iteration/validator
Empathizers
Strategic Partner
Architects of Solutions
Documenters
User Advocates
Beyond the UI
Valuable
After much work and discussion (as well as making fun of my inability to spell without spellcheck) the team broke down the list to 5 tenants that were to represent how the Mobify design team would like to be perceived as an organization, by Mobify and by the outside business/design community. These words shaped our goal setting and were the foundation for the development of the design principles. Listed below:
Leaders: We are an energetic group who are empowered to create transformative user experiences that improve business outcomes. Through our thought leadership and dedication we inspire and educate those around us to instil a human centred approach.
Collaborate: We create our best work through a strong culture of open authentic communication between each other and our fellow Mobifers. We are supportive of each other, and don’t take ourselves or our work too seriously. We contribute too and enhance the design community by sharing our ideas and expertise whenever possible.
Strategists: Through a foundation of research we are able to evaluate a problem from a human centred point of view. We take in mind both the user need and the business need to create a pragmatic approach. This allows us to create solutions that speak directly to the goals and motivations of the people using our designs and results that benefit the organization.
Craft: We strive to educate and advance our skills to ensure that our work is of the highest quality and caliber. We take ownership of the experience, developing delightful experiences that allow for everyone to engage in our designs. We strive to produce results that become the standard that other companies strive to emulate.
Unified: We are all passionate about design in its various forms. Each of us have distinct areas where we express our craft, but by following a set of unified principles and values we are able to consistently create exceptional work.
At this point the design team felt unified and with a clear direction toward who they wanted to be and we developed goals that directed to these points. But how do we apply this to the everyday work? How do we ensure people understand our approach and that a designer isn’t just ‘Magic’ and there is a process? This these questions in mind we developed the 5 Principles to move us forward.
Bring Design to a Equal Level with Engineering
Most organizations tend to view creative work as a mystery. People go away with some requirements and then come back with a design that can be implemented. How and why they came up with those designs doesn’t matter as long as the results are successful. To bring the design team level with engineering we had to represent design process in a matter that was digestible to not only engineers but to the entire company. We started with the concept of design thinking and broke it down to three elements.
Research — figure out the goals and motivations for who you were designing for.
Design — Create information architecture and design language based off those goals and motivations
Test — Which is testing the product and design against the people who the designs were intended
This lead to the approach being understood by most of Mobify however when evaluating design work there was still a little bit of work needed. Most people don’t know how to evaluate a design from a holistic point of view. They look at things that they understand and focus on those elements. The design principles are meant to help you evaluate the entirety of the work. Take Be Human for example. There are questions you can ask when looking at a design that are meant to drive you back to the entire design:
- Does the solution consider the human’s needs?
- What research is being used to influence the design?
- Have you matched a persona to your problem?
- What job is your project meant to do?
- Have you tested your solution?
By demystifying design process and showing that it can be applied to other problem solving needs across the company it is helping the relationship between design and development and allow for much better evaluation of work and a more unified company approach. Simply asking in a review “Does this design add Value? Is it Simple? Does it Communicate Clearly? Is it Human? Does it Exhibit Craftsmanship?” Means stakeholders outside of Design have a starting point for evaluation rather than falling back on what they view as the priorities of the design.
Promote Mobify Design
Keeping in mind that our Design Principles also give a context and a understand of how we approach design to outsiders looking in. From clients and partners to potential employees, they give an idea of how we approach the problem solving and product direction. Educating the company on this approach took a variety of approaches.
Presentation
We started with presenting the concept of design thinking early on where we explained the philosophy and practice. This was followed by a lunch and learn where we explained to concept further and did some practice exercises that showed how this would be integrated into our process.
Video
We also developed a video where we interviewed people from sales, marketing, engineering, customer service and project management. In those interviews we pulled out examples of how they were already using the Design Principles in everyday situation to show the company that this wasn’t a new process or approach but rather a extension and articulation of work they were already applying. This video is used both in recruiting and as a introduction to the design team when new people are onboarded into the company.
Posters
We also developed a poster campaign describing each of the principles. These posters are placed in high traffic areas such as meeting rooms and are both educational but also reminders to people. They also showcase Design within the company as an organization that is doing things to benefit the product and the company. As a side note it seemed the posters placed in bathroom stalls created the most memory retention.
How We Use Design Principles
Today we have integrated the principles into everything we do at Mobify. Documentation is essential and the principles have been built into every project brief produced and include each principle as a section that describes the plan to ensure that the product delivers on each principle. From there it is showcased in our problem solving and testing and each outcome is evaluated on the principles. The reviews of the product are also supported by team members outside of design.
We also apply these to individual team members as well. On one on ones, designers are often asked how they applied principles through out the week and we choose one example to showcase to the company in a weekly email. All of this together shows commitment and results to the principles making them more valid.
TL;DR
In order for design principles to be successful they most come from within the company and pertain to the goals and motivations of the team as a whole. To do this look at what the team needs to accomplish and build them based on that. Word exercises can be a starting point and focus on action items. Once the principles have been created then inform, educate and practice using them. They should be integrated into the product development process from initial kick off to final review. All of this together will create a product that is more coherent and focused and a team that knows how to approach a design from engineering to sales to marketing to the design team itself.
