Remember the purpose of your design. Keep coming back to the essential.
Gently guide the user rather than push them.
Design is communication. Speak simply, directly and sincerely, avoiding hype and obfuscation.
Don’t be presumptuous or nagging. By default turn off features that may annoy many users, and refrain then from nagging users to turn those features on.
Be patient. Inspiration arises in the gap between thoughts.
Good design is invisible. The user should be able to naturally and intuitively navigate and become absorbed in the content, forgetting entirely that there is a design that is structuring their experience.
Don’t overwhelm the user with options. Maintain a sense of focus.
Remove the unneccesary.
Refine the details until there is a visual harmony, a resonance of the whole. This is like tuning each string on a guitar, not too tight, not too loose.
When in doubt, simplify.
One well functioning feature is better than 10 with bugs.
Avoid hacks. Hacks have a way of requiring more hacks. It is sort of like Western medicine where you take one drug and then you require another drug to treat the symptoms of the first drug, and then yet another drug to treat the symptoms of the second drug, and so on in a rather messy, unsustainable spiral.
Avoid trendy features and design elements. Try to design with a sense of timelessness.
Be authentic. Work with what you have rather than what you wish you had.
Be patient. Inspiration arises in the gap between thoughts. Allow designs to develop naturally, organically, at their own pace; gradually increasing the beneficial and reducing the unbeneficial.
Do no harm. Don’t create design for harmful content. The paycheck isn’t worth it.
