Why this Book?

Good Design Is book cover

Every design team has a set of principles that guides the work it does. Most teams usually keep this set to ten, just enough to make memorable.

Most of these principles are creeds culled from works by renowned design thinkers and practitioners, cognitive scientists, and creators.

I, too, have been influenced and am guided daily by various articles, courses, and books on solid time-tested principles to prescribe or proscribe designs. Really to make any work satisfactory for its intended people.

So below, I present a rather modest list of such materials. For a complete enumeration, every material listed studied thoroughly, referred to regularly, and, most certainly, recommended, see Bibliography.

Materials on Design Principles

Online Articles

  1. Dieter Rams: 10 Principles for Good Design
  2. What Is Design Theory? The Only Guide You Need
  3. Good design is good business
  4. 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design

Online Courses

  1. guide you in

Books (Online/Offline)

  1. The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman

So, why am I proceeding with yet another set of principles? And, of course, these new (or additional) principles may well overlap with the ones you may have come across if you reference the above materials.

Therefore, Why?

I feel there is yet a need for a concise, complete, and timeless resource that a designer can reference to ask themselves questions what a good design is in order to answer whether theirs measures up.

Therefore, Good Design Is, is like a set of 17 questions any designer can ask themselves when considering a particular design--theirs or that of another--to confidently and correctly judge it good or bad.

I also needed to order these set of "guiding lights" in the most morally correct order. It is my thinking that good design would not necessarily be folly. Noteworthy is my bringing Purposeful first but Profitable last. It is in a designer's best interest to put other people's interests ahead of theirs. This holds equally true for any organization that takes good design seriously. Indeed, as it is purposeful, so is good design profitable.

Good Design Is

  1. Purposeful
  2. Thoughtful
  3. Caring
  4. Thorough
  5. Original
  6. Clear
  7. Simple
  8. Honest
  9. Reliable
  10. Timeless
  11. Pleasing
  12. Calming
  13. Coherent
  14. Focused
  15. Airy
  16. Balanced
  17. Profitable

Why 17? Could It Be More? Less?

10 + 7? ... :)

Preface What Design?