Design principles

This page gathers foundational principles from some of the most influential designers. It's meant to be both a reference and a reminder of the ideas behind good product and UX design practices.

Dieter Rams — 10 Principles of Good Design

Rams was chief of design at Braun from 1961 to 1995. Concerned by what he called "an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises," he formulated ten principles to define what separates good design from the rest.

  1. Innovative Good design uses new technology or ideas meaningfully rather than novelty for its own sake.
  2. Useful A design exists to solve a real problem and should prioritize function over decoration.
  3. Aesthetic Visual quality matters because people live with products and interfaces daily.
  4. Understandable A design should explain itself through its form and behavior without instruction.
  5. Unobtrusive Good design is neutral and restrained, leaving space for the user rather than demanding attention.
  6. Honest Design should never manipulate, exaggerate, or mislead users about what something does.
  7. Long-lasting A design should avoid trends so it remains relevant and useful over time.
  8. Thorough Every detail should be intentional, considered, and resolved.
  9. Environmentally friendly Design should minimize harm by conserving resources and reducing waste.
  10. As little design as possible The best design removes everything that is not essential.

IDEO — Human-Centered Design Principles

IDEO is a global design consultancy founded in 1991. Their human-centered design methodology, codified in the Field Guide to Human-Centered Design, frames design as a process of empathy, iteration, and co-creation with the people being designed for.

  1. Empathy first Begin by deeply understanding the people you are designing for, not the problem you assume exists.
  2. Define the right problem Reframe challenges as human needs before generating solutions.
  3. Desirability, viability, feasibility Good design sits at the intersection of what people want, what is technically possible, and what is financially sustainable.
  4. Diverge before converging Generate many possibilities before narrowing; premature judgment kills good ideas.
  5. Prototype to think Build rough, quick representations of ideas to make thinking tangible and testable.
  6. Test with real people Assumptions must be validated with actual users in realistic contexts, not internal consensus.
  7. Embrace failure as learning Failed prototypes are data, not setbacks; iteration is the method.
  8. Design with, not for Involve the people affected by a design in its creation rather than designing on their behalf.
  9. Systems thinking Solutions exist within larger ecosystems; understand upstream and downstream effects.
  10. Optimize for impact The measure of a design is meaningful change in people's lives, not aesthetic or technical achievement alone.

Nielsen Norman Group — 10 Usability Heuristics

Jakob Nielsen published these heuristics in 1994 as broad rules of thumb for evaluating interface design. They remain the most widely used framework for usability review, covering feedback, error handling, consistency, and cognitive load.

  1. Visibility of system status The system should always keep users informed about what is happening.
  2. Match between system and the real world Interfaces should use concepts and language familiar to users.
  3. User control and freedom Users should be able to undo actions and escape unwanted states easily.
  4. Consistency and standards Similar things should behave similarly to reduce learning effort.
  5. Error prevention Design should prevent problems before they occur rather than fixing them afterward.
  6. Recognition rather than recall Interfaces should minimize memory load by making options visible.
  7. Flexibility and efficiency of use Systems should support both beginners and experts efficiently.
  8. Aesthetic and minimalist design Interfaces should avoid irrelevant information that competes for attention.
  9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors Error messages should be clear, human, and actionable.
  10. Help and documentation Assistance should be easy to find, concise, and task-focused when needed.

Don Norman — Principles of Interaction Design

Norman is a cognitive scientist and co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group. In The Design of Everyday Things (1988, revised 2013), he identified the fundamental mechanisms through which people understand and interact with objects and interfaces.

  1. Affordances An object's properties should suggest how it can be used.
  2. Signifiers Clear signals should indicate where and how to act.
  3. Mapping Controls should relate spatially or logically to their effects.
  4. Feedback Every action should produce a visible, immediate response.
  5. Conceptual models A design should convey how it works through its structure.
  6. Constraints Limiting possible actions prevents errors and guides correct use.

Gestalt Psychology — Core Perceptual Principles

Developed in early 20th-century Germany by psychologists including Wertheimer, Köhler, and Koffka, Gestalt theory describes how the mind organises visual information into unified wholes. These principles underpin how people perceive grouping, hierarchy, and form.

  1. Proximity Elements close to each other are perceived as related.
  2. Similarity Elements that look alike are perceived as belonging together.
  3. Continuity The eye prefers smooth, continuous paths rather than abrupt changes.
  4. Closure The mind fills in missing information to perceive complete forms.
  5. Figure / ground People instinctively separate foreground elements from background context.
  6. Common fate Elements that move or change together are perceived as a group.
  7. Prägnanz (simplicity) People perceive forms in the simplest way possible.

Bauhaus — Core Design Principles

The Bauhaus was a German school of art and design founded by Walter Gropius in 1919. It unified fine art, craft, and industrial production, and its ideas laid the groundwork for modern graphic design, architecture, and product design.

  1. Form follows function The shape of a design should be determined by its purpose.
  2. Reduction to essentials Unnecessary elements should be removed to reveal core structure.
  3. Unity of art, craft, and technology Design should integrate aesthetics, skill, and engineering.
  4. Geometric clarity Simple geometric forms create order and legibility.
  5. Truth to materials Materials should be used honestly rather than disguised.
  6. Design for real life Design should be practical, reproducible, and accessible to everyday users.

Josef Müller-Brockmann — Grid Systems & Visual Communication Principles

Müller-Brockmann (1914–1996) was a Swiss graphic designer and pioneer of the International Typographic Style. His 1961 book Grid Systems in Graphic Design established the mathematical grid as the foundation of rational, objective visual communication.

  1. The grid as structure An underlying mathematical grid creates order, legibility, and coherence across a composition.
  2. Visual hierarchy Size, weight, and position should establish a clear reading order that guides the eye without confusion.
  3. Typographic discipline Type is not decoration; its proportions, spacing, and alignment carry communicative responsibility.
  4. Whitespace as element Empty space is active and intentional, giving content room to breathe and be understood.
  5. Objective communication Design should convey information clearly and without subjective distortion or stylistic noise.
  6. Constructive reduction Remove everything that does not serve the communication; clarity is achieved through subtraction.
  7. Consistent rhythm Repeated proportions, spacing intervals, and column widths create visual harmony across a layout.
  8. Alignment as meaning Elements aligned to a common axis are perceived as related; misalignment should be purposeful, never accidental.
  9. Typography and image in tension The relationship between type and image should be deliberate, balanced, and mutually reinforcing.
  10. Reproducibility and universality A visual system should work across scales, formats, and contexts without losing integrity.

Edward Tufte — Principles of Analytical Design

Tufte is a statistician and Yale professor whose four books on data visualisation — beginning with The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (1983) — defined the standards for honest, information-dense graphic communication.

  1. Above all else, show the data Design exists to reveal data clearly and truthfully, not to decorate it.
  2. Show comparisons Evidence gains meaning only when viewers can compare values, changes, or differences.
  3. Show explanation and mechanisms Graphics should help explain how and why patterns occur, not merely display correlations.
  4. Show multivariate data Good visualizations reflect the true complexity of reality rather than reducing it to single variables.
  5. Integrate words, numbers, and images Explanations, labels, and data should live together in one coherent visual argument.
  6. Document sources, methods, and uncertainty Credibility requires transparency about data origins, processing, and limitations.
  7. Maintain graphical integrity Visual representations must not distort quantities, scale, or relationships.
  8. Maximize data-ink; minimize non-data ink Increase the proportion of ink devoted to actual data while removing all decoration, ornament, and visual noise that carries no information.
  9. Use high data density Dense displays pack meaningful information into compact space, respecting the viewer's ability to read complexity.
  10. Use small multiples Repeating the same graphic structure across slices of data invites direct comparison and reveals patterns.
  11. Escape flatland Use layering, annotation, and contextual depth to add informational dimensions without distorting the data.

References

  1. Dieter Rams Rams Foundation, 10 Principles for Good Design, 2002.
  2. IDEO IDEO.org, The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. IDEO.org, 2015.
  3. Nielsen Norman Group Jakob Nielsen, “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design.” Nielsen Norman Group.
  4. Don Norman Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Basic Books, 2013.
  5. Gestalt psychology Kurt Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935.
  6. Bauhaus Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1965.
  7. Josef Müller-Brockmann Josef Müller-Brockmann, Grid Systems in Graphic Design. Niggli, 1981.
  8. Edward Tufte Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 2nd ed. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 2001.