Many organisations publish design principles. They appear in slide decks, design systems and internal documentation. They are sometimes printed on posters and hung on office walls. Yet they are rarely used.

Meetings still go on and on. Teams argue over the same questions. Decisions often depend on opinion or whoever speaks the loudest.

The problem is usually not that teams lack design principles. The problem is that most design principles don’t work.

They are written like slogans

Many design principles sound impressive, they’re idealistic and make everyone feel positive. They come from great motives.

Be user-centric.
Keep things simple.
Delight the customer.

But these are not really principles. They are aspirations. They describe how a team would like their work to feel.

A design principle should do something more practical. It should help a team make a decision when there are several possible options.

A slogan describes intent. A principle guides a choice.

For example:

“Keep things simple.”

What does that mean in practice?

“Simple” is subjective.

Simple for whom?
Simple compared to what?
Simple in which situation?

“Simple” sounds sensible, but it’s also very vague. Different people will interpret simple in completely different ways.

One designer might think simple means removing options. Another might think it means reducing visual clutter. Someone else might think it means hiding complex features behind a menu so the initial view is clean.

All of those interpretations could be defended as “keeping things simple”.

There is another problem here. Simplicity is not always the right goal.

Imagine applying the same idea of keeping things simple when designing an aircraft cockpit. A cockpit would certainly be simpler if it contained only a steering wheel and a start button. But that level of simplicity would make it completely unusable for its purpose.

A cockpit contains many instruments and controls because the pilot needs them. Removing them might make the interface look simpler, but it would make the aircraft much harder — and far more dangerous — to operate.

So the instruction “keep things simple” does not really guide a decision. It only describes a general preference.

A principle needs to go a step further. It needs to explain what should happen when things become complicated.

A more useful principle might be something like:

“Prefer what matters.”

Now a team has something they can use. If a design includes too much information, the principle guides them towards what to prioritise. The discussion becomes about prioritisation rather than personal preference. The discussion becomes about what truly matters.

They avoid trade-offs

Real principles reveal priorities. Many sets of principles list ideas that sound sensible but never conflict with one another.

A typical list might look like this:

Be consistent
Be flexible
Be simple
Be powerful

All of these sound reasonable. But none of them help when a decision becomes difficult. Real design work involves trade-offs.

Sometimes consistency conflicts with clarity. Sometimes simplicity conflicts with flexibility.

A useful principle helps resolve those moments. If everything is equally important, nothing actually guides the decision.

There are too many of them

Some organisations publish ten or fifteen design principles. Long lists are difficult to remember and difficult to recall in conversations when discussing a decision. When principles become long lists, they turn into documentation instead of tools. A small number of principles is easier to remember and easier to use in conversation.

Good principles should appear naturally in discussions:

“Does this follow our clarity principle?”

“This might conflict with our accessibility requirement.”

“Does this feature really matter here?”

If nobody can remember them, they will never influence decisions. The most effective examples use 3-5 principles.

They are never used

The real test of a design principle is very simple. Does anyone actually refer to it?

If principles only exist on a website or inside documentation, they are unlikely to matter.

When principles work well they become part of everyday language. Teams refer to them during discussions and use them to justify decisions. They help people explain and understand why one option is better than another. Without that practical use, they remain decorative.

They are often confused with values

Many design principles are actually organisational values. Design principles aren’t mission statements.

Values describe what a company believes.

Principles guide how teams make decisions.

Both are important, but they serve different purposes.

A value might say:

We value transparency.

A principle might say:

Help the user understand what is happening and why.

Values shape culture.

Principles shape decisions.

When the two are mixed together, principles become vague and difficult to apply.

What principles are really for

Design principles are not statements of intent. They are tools. They help teams make decisions when things are unclear. They reduce debate. They give people a shared way to reason about choices.

When written well, they quietly shape how work gets done. When written poorly, they become slogans that nobody uses.

The difference is not whether a team has principles. It is whether those principles actually guide decisions.

Often design principles are confused with rules. It’s important to understand the difference between principles and rules. This distinction is explained in the free sample chapter of the field guide Design Principles in Practice.

I write occasionally about how principles function in real organisations, where they succeed, where they fail, and how they evolve over time.

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Written by Ben Brignell