Why & How to Create Design Team Principles

OneSignal Design Principles

As your design team grows, it’s important to establish a set of design principles. This keeps the team (+ org) aligned across all functions of design.

For us that includes product design, visual design & design engineering.

Here are our principles & how they came to be…

Why even create design principles at all?

• Help the team with decision making
• Help focus the team on a consistent vision
• Help onboard new members to the team
• Help everyone at the org think about design

Design principles should:

• Take a stand on which value is important
• Inspire empathy
• Be concise
• Be memorable
• Not conflict with one another
• Be specific enough to reflect our values
• Be broad enough to apply universally

Design workshop

Like all great design teams, we got in a room at one of our onsites & did a design workshop.