UX design
fromSmashing Magazine
3 days agoA Practical Guide To Design Principles - Smashing Magazine
Design principles align teams, inform decisions, and embody organizational values, serving as essential tools in the design process.
Earlier we did episode one of this with Grady Booch where we discussed the principled view of that what's changing and what remains unchanged, what is hyped and what is actually naturally coming with the AI changes. We also spoke about that what is the difference between the design and the architecture and what teams are focusing and what they might be missing.
They teach us how to make photo-like drawings. Such renderings look decent but also generic, conventional-like something an AI tool might produce. And they are boring. Why is that? Because they don't mean anything. Meaning An object, like a cup, can mean many different things to us. Now the question is: Which meaning is relevant to you right now? And the answer to this question is what makes your drawing interesting.
In NHS England, all our work is measured against the NHS service standard and we use the NHS design principles to help make decisions about how to align our work with our values. While both documents are useful, I've observed teams struggling with a lack of clarity about how to put them into practice. It doesn't help that we have many teams working autonomously, all trying to keep up in a fast paced environment.
There's a melancholy in watching software die. One day, it's the tool you swear by, shaping your work and your life. The next, it's sunsetted, acquired and dismantled, or quietly abandoned in a forgotten GitHub repo. If you've been on the internet long enough, you've buried many of your digital companions, such as del.icio.us, Google Reader, ICQ, Winamp, and countless others that once felt eternal.