_posts/2016-04-08-making-more-consistent-decisions-with-design-principles-a-new-18f-guide.md
---
title: "Making more consistent decisions with design principles: A new 18F guide"
date: 2016-04-08
authors:
- egoodman
- bradnunnally
tags:
- design
- guides
- how we work
excerpt: "Design principles are concise, specific guidelines for generating and
then evaluating ideas and artifacts. We had trouble finding detailed instructions for making and using design principles online. So we decided to write our own."
description: "Design principles are concise, specific guidelines for generating and
then evaluating ideas and artifacts. We had trouble finding detailed instructions for making and using design principles online. So we decided to write our own."
image: /assets/blog/design/design-principles-guide.jpg
redirect_from:
- /2016/04/07/making-more-consistent-decisions-with-design-principles-a-new-18f-guide/
---
Design principles are concise, specific guidelines for generating and
then evaluating ideas and artifacts. UX designers [frequently use
them](http://www.designprinciplesftw.com/) to create a shared language
and set of references within teams. However, good design principles
aren’t universal commandments like “make it usable.” To be really
useful, a design principle needs to be specific to your organization and
perhaps even a single project. Since we work with many organizations,
that means 18F teams find themselves making and re-making design
principles more often than a dedicated in-house team might.
At 18F, design principles help us collaborate flexibly with people
across disciplines — a content strategist, interaction designer, and
front end developer can also apply the same principle to different parts
of the project, helping it stay consistent through agile iterations.
Most importantly, however, design principles help us say “no” to feature
ideas that are exciting but peripheral to project mission.
Some of us at 18F have created design principles before — but many
hadn’t. So we wanted to help teams at 18F and our partners throughout
the federal government get started with their own. However, we had
trouble finding detailed instructions for making and using design
principles online. So [we decided to write our
own](https://pages.18f.gov/design-principles-guide/), synthesized from
our own experience and from the advice that we found most helpful in our
quest for instructions. A team knows they have a strong set of design
principles to work from when they allow for multiple solutions to be
considered and when the design rationale they provide honors the
principles themselves. The team should have the freedom to experiment
and push the boundaries without breaking the spirit of the design
principles.
[
](https://pages.18f.gov/design-principles-guide/create)
Check out the [Design Principles
Guide](https://pages.18f.gov/design-principles-guide/) for yourself.
There’s a [condensed
version](https://methods.18f.gov/design-principles/) of how to make
your own design principles available in our method cards as well.
We’d love to hear how your teams use design principles and the methods
you use to create them. Feel free to share your stories and experience
via our [GitHub
repo](https://github.com/18F/design-principles-guide), via
[email](mailto:18f@gsa.gov), or to [our Twitter
account](https://twitter.com/18f).