<aside> đź’ˇ What are design principles?

What are some SPI-specific principles of design you’d like to be our anchor?

Design principles are a set of values that act as a compass for your product. They’re an agreed upon truth: the guideposts that keep your entire team on the same path as you move through the design process. Design principles should be specific, nuanced, and actionable.

The test for great specific design principles is that you can’t easily transfer them between companies or industries. They bring your user experience vision to life in a way that is unique to your mission and user base. You’ll know you have these right when you can validate them through research.

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Defining our design principles

  1. Familiarity (Jakob’s Law)
    1. The People using the SPI DA platform will often be under tough and stressful circumstances. Our flows should be as familiar to other systems as possible so that users aren’t caught up by friction
  2. Inclusivity
    1. SPI has a variety of users from different countries & backgrounds, how can we best simplify the language to be clear & helpful for all users?
    2. User of all backgrounds need to be considered and designed for so that no one is unintentionally left out. I especially focus on contrast and text size for visual accessibility but other barriers need to be included too.
  3. Visual Hierarchy/Balance
    1. From last phase, the team had 7 features. Additionally, we will add more features moving forward. We need to find the right balance both visually and features-wise to not make it overwhelming.
    2. Users should not get confused while trying to navigate through the portal.
    3. We need to focus more on page transitions and consistency.
  4. Community
    1. Building a strong local community at all times to provide resources & support for the end user.
  5. Learnability
    1. The features needs to be simple and consistent throughout as to encourage the first-time user to continue using the platform.