How good design enhances agility (Agile principle #9)

Agile principle number nine states that continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. Let’s look at the design part of this. Good design enhances agility. How? What is good design in the context of agility? How does good design help with agility?

Good design is not just about aesthetics; it’s a strategic asset that enhances an organization’s agility by fostering collaboration, facilitating rapid prototyping and ensuring a user-centric, market responsive approach throughout the development process. But what is good design? For this we need to borrow some of the famous principles of good design by Dieter Rams, apply them to an Agile context and add some new principles.

1. Good is as little design as possible (10th principle of Dieter Rams)

This is the 10th principle from the 10 principles of good design from Dieter Rams and is crucial for agility. The more complex a design, the more difficult it is to respond to change. Adding elements to a design makes it less flexible. Not just to change the design but also for development. Simplicity, the art of maximizing the work not done, is the also 10th principle of the agile manifesto. This shows that this is one of the principles in which design and agile software development meet.

2. Good design makes a product understandable (4th principle of Dieter Rams)

The fourth principle of Dieter Rams is important because if the design is clear, understandable, less time needs to be spent on refinement. Unclear designs lead to long refinement sessions. In design there are many options and discussing all those options takes time. Group discussions about design might not lead to the best design outcome. Good design is so obvious that it makes it seem like it’s the only option. Good design is so clear that everyone understands the solutions, not just the end-users but also developers and all stakeholders involved.

3. Good design is aesthetic (3rd principle of Dieter Rams)

Good design is not just about aesthetics but aesthetics matter in the context of agility. This is another one of Dieter Ram’s principles and is also important for agility. Agility is not just dependent on development speed but als on stakeholder engagement and funding. People inside the organization need to be convinced of the change and funding needs to be available. Aesthetics is one of the ways that design convinces people, pulls them in, keeps them engaged. The change is functional but aesthetics helps to create the necessary enthusiasm to make the change happen.

4. Good design is a system

Dieter Rams was a industrial designer. Although the other principles of Dieter Rams are excellent principles for design, they are not so relevant in the context of agility. :-) What is important is that designing an application means designing a system. Good design is not designing screens or pages but designing a system. In the most basic sense, this means designing a Design System that holds all the interface elements and how they relate to each other so they can be re-used. But in a more complex sense, this means that the UX design is also a system, an overarching concept that is robust enough for changes. All things are connected in an application and the interaction model should flow across all features. This requires system thinking when designing. A good system is the fundament for fast design because if the system is good, new designs are relatively easy. A good system can pivot easily and has elements that can be re-used.

5. Good design is robust

Robustness deserves a separate principle. Robustness is the opposite of sensitivity. A robust design doesn’t suffer from changes or additions. A robust design only gets stronger with changes. If a design gets stronger with a change or a new feature, you know the design is robust. In a robust design, the quality of the design is proven by the fact that a new feature or a change shows the quality of the design. If a design is robust, it takes less time to change or design a new feature and takes less time to develop the change or new feature.

6. Good design is re-usable

This one also falls under the umbrella of good design is a system but is good to highlight with a separate principle. ;-) A design system of components that be re-used is quintessential for agility. Good components are more re-usable if they can come in variations, that they have variables. Good design requires thinking about what it is you are designing. Is it a list, a table, a card, a form? These things can come in many sizes and shapes and understanding the typology of interface elements is crucial. A search bar is basically a form that sends a request. Search results can be a table or a list. Web interfaces have a taxonomy. Not just in code but also in design.

7. Good design grows

What we want to avoid is the Big Design Up Front ;-) In waterfall processes, it was necessary to have the design completely finished before development began. Luckily those days are over. In a complex, innovative context, designing a complete solution up front is impossible. In Agile, design is part of the Agile team, of the iterations or sprints. Design should work on each story, making the design grow. This requires the design concept to be powerful and robust. The seed must contain the information that can let the design grow. This is difficult and during the lifetime of a product, a design concept pivot might be necessary. Good design welcomes changing requirements. Changing requirements make good design better. The way design does this is by prototyping, trying, failing, learning.

8. Good design tells a story

Good design is functional, great design tells a story. Stories help with the engagement en flow of the application through the organization just like aesthetics. An application is always part of a story, a narrative of an organization that is changing. A picture tells more than a thousand words. Good design tells the story of a company and where it’s going.

9. Good design is the documentation

Because a picture tells more than a thousand words, design can be the documentation for a project. Agile prefers working software over comprehensive documentation. Design can be a part of the documentation, not of the code but of where the application is going, of the ideas about the application, of the vision.

10. Good design is a platform for collaboration

This is one of the most powerful sides of design. Design is the language that everyone speaks. Developers, business owners, strategists, marketeers, legal people can all speak a different language and they might not understand each other. But everyone understands pictures. Pictures are a universal language that can bring all together. Agile is all about people and interactions and images are the most powerful force that can bring people together and empower collaboration.

11. Good design is user-centered

Last but not least, design brings user-centeredness to products. The highest priority of Agile is to satisfy the customer. Design doesn’t have the monopoly on user-centeredness but design brings user-centeredness to products. And also stakeholder-centered. And also technology-centered. Good design brings together users, business stakeholders and technology.

There are many ways in which good design adds to agility. Eleven ways, maybe more.

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