Design rationale, critique and decision records · Proficient · Lesson 81 of 99 · about 2 hours
Writing design principles that settle arguments
After this you can draft a small set of product design principles that make real trade-offs explicit, and use them to resolve design disagreements without escalation.
Why it matters
Good design principles are opinionated statements of what a team values when two good things conflict ('clarity over density', 'safe by default, powerful on request'), grounded in research and the product's strategy. They let people decide consistently without asking you, which is the point of seniority. Focus on principles that exclude something; a principle nobody could disagree with ('be user-friendly') does no work. Trap: writing them alone and announcing them. Principles that a team did not help draft are not used.
How to use this resource
How to write principles that guide decisions, with examples of strong and weak ones and a process for creating them with a team. No free video covers this as well.