4 Design Principles to Create Products That Work for Everyone

Four principles Adam Silver uses daily to avoid bad UX, focusing on inclusivity, obviousness, user control, and performance.

  1. Good design works for everyone

    Designing for edge cases improves the experience for all users. Subtitles help in noisy environments, plain language aids experts too, and large click targets benefit everyone.

  2. Good design makes things obvious

    The best solutions feel inevitable. Show navigation items instead of hiding them in hamburger menus, display hints inline rather than in tooltips.

  3. Good design puts users in control

    Design for real life, not ideal workflows. Let users save progress, trigger menus on click not hover, and paginate instead of infinite scroll.

  4. Good design is lightweight

    Slow interfaces cause stress and feel untrustworthy. Cut background videos, remove unnecessary tooltips, and show content inline instead of in carousels.