UX Principles

Many of us have a set of principles that guide how we behave and act in our daily lives — like trying to prioritize family over work, practice what we preach, or be present in the moment. Many of the world’s religions and traditions also share fundamental principles of human conduct, such as charity, justice, compassion, and mutual respect. All of these principles help us optimize how we live our lives and ideally be more content.  

In the same way that we use principles to get the most out of our lives, user experience (UX) designers use their own set of principles to ensure we have positive experiences with the products and services we use. 

UX principles are foundational guidelines and concepts that help designers create products and services that are intuitive, user-friendly, and satisfying. In other words, they are pieces of advice, accumulated over many years from the knowledge and experience of UX professionals and researchers, that designers can use to inform the design decisions made throughout the development process. While there’s no fixed number of UX principles, these are some of the most commonly recognized and used:^1,2

1.  User-Centered Design: Prioritize the needs, goals, and preferences of users throughout the design process. Understand the target audience and design with their perspectives in mind.
2.  Usability: Ensure that the product is easy to use and navigate, with intuitive interfaces and clear functionality. Users should be able to accomplish tasks efficiently and effectively.
3.  Consistency: Maintain consistency in design elements such as layout, terminology, and interaction patterns. Consistency helps users predict the behavior of the interface and reduces cognitive load.
4.  Accessibility: Design products that are accessible to users with diverse abilities and needs. Consider factors such as readability, keyboard navigation, and support for assistive technologies.
5.  Visual Hierarchy: Including a clear visual hierarchy can help guide a user’s attention to the most important elements on a page or product. Use visual cues such as size, color, contrast, and typography to highlight key information and actions, facilitating ease of navigation and comprehension for users.
6.  User Control: Give the user balanced control over how they interact with a product. Offer clear navigation paths, customizable settings, and options for undoing or redoing actions, allowing users to navigate and manipulate the interface according to their preferences and goals.
7.  Context Awareness: Design products that adapt to the context of use, such as the user's location, device, or task. Anticipate user needs based on context and tailor the experience accordingly.

In addition to these common UX principles, certain fields or products have their own customized design principles that are tailored to the context. For example, Frank Spillers, a leading UX consultant, devised a design checklist for mobile UX design that considers the different limitations and requirements of mobile devices compared with computers.³ Guidelines such as minimizing content, simplifying navigation, and restricting user inputs can all help to ensure that designers working exclusively with mobile interfaces create user-friendly products optimized for those devices. 

Finally, companies such as Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Nokia also develop their own design principles for specific products. Back in 2009, when Facebook was quickly spreading across the world, the company shared a list of the six principles—universal, human, clean, consistent, useful, fast, and transparent—it used to inform the design of its popular social media platform.⁴