10 essential design principles for product managers

Good design should be a priority for every product. It may be intimidating – especially if it isn’t your natural inclination – but ignoring design principles is a missed opportunity. Product design is a crucial differentiator for promoting new launches.

There are 10 product design principles all product managers should follow. These essential guidelines will ensure you release a product customers love to use.

1. Prioritize functionality 

The product’s core functions must be effective and efficient. Early product development should prioritize the users’ needs and expectations. Users come to your site to fulfill a particular need, so your solution should be apparent at a glance. Anything else can wait.

Next, focus on expectations. The best product designers understand users’ workflow well enough to predict their goals.

Below, you’ll see the flight search engine Kayak. It’s well-designed, simple, and intuitive. Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell where one should focus.

Although the interface design is fantastic, the same cannot be said for the user experience, which is just as critical. There’s too much competition between various colors, equal priority given to all the filters, and multiple lines of information in each section.

Enter Google Flights. Although it is aesthetically bare-bones, Google has done something essential: highlighted essential info based on what you’re actually looking for.

Is price a significant influence on you? Google lists lower prices first. Are certain airlines deal breakers? The page provides that information upfront. The product team considered what they already knew about users and prioritized accordingly.

Google Flights reduced visual clutter by honing in on crucial user needs and minimizing other features. The filters are still there, but they’re lightened to prevent distraction.

2. Embrace user-centric design

User experiences should be simple. This is a fundamental but often ignored principle. Managers understandably want to include as many features as possible, but this can hinder the user’s goals. Designers should consider the end-user’s preferences, behaviors, and pain points throughout the design process.

Take the example below of an early version of the LastPass password management program. In this early design, many elements could overwhelm the user. Without a focal point, how will users know where to begin?

Almost every button has the same degree of importance. Different functions should be visually weighted depending on their consequence and frequency of use. 

The action icons’ colors don’t match, making the page feel cluttered.

The site has dramatically improved between this example and its latest version. Designers reworked the layout around the user’s core action of searching for a program-specific password to change, edit, or delete. They accomplished this by:

• Giving actions a clear visual hierarchy

• Enlarging brand logos and putting them front and center

• Adding a hover effect to each brand to access secondary options (e.g., edit, delete, etc.)

Although the design looks significantly different, most functions remain the same. The changes were fueled by simple tweaks which drastically reduced the user’s cognitive load and provided a cleaner experience.

3. Design in MSP

So far, we’ve discussed common design principles you’ll hear as a PM. However, a less-talked-about method directs your team to design in MSP (minimum sellable product). 

A product’s design is the first thing a user acknowledges before anything else; it informs their first impression. Naturally, the product needs to be functional, but it must also be something the sales team can sell to users. This includes the early majority, not just early adopters and innovators. If you’re unfamiliar with these terms, review the Technology Adoption Lifecycle Model below:

In his 1991 book Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore explained that products must bridge the chasm between early adopters and the majority of the market to succeed. Crossing the chasm is difficult, but only designing an MSP can make it easier. Picky audiences in the early majority are more likely to overlook faults in products with superior design elements. 

This is particularly useful in UX design. Functionality is certainly still crucial, but the more features are packed with compelling, user-friendly design, the more accepting the market will be.

4. Focus on responsiveness

Whether on a computer, tablet, or phone, products must quickly and effectively adapt to user input and changing environments. An interface that feels slow to navigate won’t see widespread use.

Whether they realize it or not, users want their interactions to be short and sweet. PMs should aim for every core action to be achievable within three clicks. Granted, this may not be realistic for every application, but it is a great challenge to remember while designing.

Consider the following example from Amazon: Imagine a customer who bought something, really loved it, and wanted to tell the seller how they felt. How many clicks would it take to complete that task?

1. “Your Account” would be the natural first step to view past purchases. They start by hovering over it, which counts for half a click.

2. Next, they click on “Your Orders.”

3. Finally, they scroll down the list and click “Write a product review.”

Done! In 2½ clicks, they reach their destination and can perform their core action. Despite being one of the biggest websites in the world, Amazon has carefully streamlined its user process. This is no coincidence.

Again, this isn’t always possible, but the three-click mentality can serve as a litmus test for determining the friendliness of your application. Users should stay on your site because they’re getting things done, not because they can’t figure out where to go.

5. Incorporate reversible design

To err is human. It’s why pencils have erasers and voicemail systems let you rerecord a message. Still, many products don’t allow users to reverse certain actions.

Reversible design goes beyond simply clicking an undo button. Here are different ways to correct an action in popular products:

• The little “X” to delete a filter on Intercom

• Deleting or removing files from Google Drive

• Moving a Trello card – then being able to drag it back to its original place

If your support center is frequently inundated with questions from users who have lost files or made accidental changes, what they really need is a way to backtrack. Command+Z is a simple method for helping individuals help themselves.

6. White space is your friend

Help users understand and navigate the product without feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary complexity. Instead of adding more features and confusing users with a wall of choices, try embracing white space. This simple design system can elevate a layout from clunky to slick. When done well, it even eases users’ emotional experience.

Consider the example of WordPress. Everything on this screen is something the writer will eventually need to use. But it appears heavy and messy when they’re actually writing (i.e., performing the software’s core activity). Only 25% of the real estate is allocated to the white space for writing.

The site has caught on to this criticism and provided a “Distraction-free writing mode” that temporarily removes all the sidebars and makes the writing space/white space the central focus of the page. This makes the layout much cleaner but takes extra time to enable.

Compare this approach to Medium, which has always been primarily white space. It provides a space to write your post, add social widgets, type some tags, and publish. Essentially, they’ve made the process much easier for anyone jarred by WordPress or similar publishing platforms. And they haven’t reduced usability.

7. Use verbs with context

It may sound counterintuitive, but adding context sometimes enhances simplicity. Dialogue boxes with vague buttons, like “Yes,” “No,” and “Save,” require your users to read prompts carefully (perhaps multiple times) to avoid mistaken inputs. These interactions should be simple, but they often leave users uncertain.

Skilled UX designers narrow down the options and provide context. Instead of vague button choices, users get specific instructions: verbs/phrases like “Cancel,” “Save this draft without sending,” or “Yes, delete this message.” And they get context telling them why these verbs are here (e.g., deleting the highlighted message).

This design choice reduces ambiguity and the users’ cognitive load.

8. Cultivate authenticity 

These days, audiences are wary of contrived content. Blow their trust once, and it’s over. Instead, prioritize authenticity in design to foster genuine connections with users and build confidence in the product and brand. Identifying with a user’s personal values is easier than changing them.

A design should look like it belongs to the company while aligning with expectations and the user experience. Let your company’s existing language inform the design.

9. Communicate with visual language 

You can tremendously enhance the digital product experience by using visual communication to effectively convey information, emotions, and concepts. Ikea famously communicates all its furniture assembly instructions with minimal – sometimes zero – text.

Designing this way keeps things globally accessible and instantly readable. For example, most drivers will brake to a bright red octagonal sign, even if the word “stop” is missing.

Identify key features and represent them visually. Common actions should use common icons. Exotic actions new to your brand might need innovative solutions, but they should feel familiar even to first-time users. Using your brand’s existing colors across sites and apps creates a more predictable experience and ensures consistency.

10. Maintain consistency

Part of reducing cognitive load is maintaining consistency in design elements, interactions, and messaging across the product. This ensures a seamless and cohesive user experience and saves users from relearning hierarchies for different areas. If you’ve been to one McDonald’s, you know how to order at any of them.

Stay consistent across colors, fonts, icons, and layouts. Designing everything over an invisible grid will subconsciously direct the user’s attention where you want it. And the more intuitive it is, the more they’ll want to return.

Design is your secret weapon – let Tempo handle the rest

Design has become increasingly important in product organizations, and it can be your secret weapon for standing out in a sea of competitors. Whether you’re working on your first prototype or the thousandth iteration of your product, product design should always be a priority.

A cohesive design language requires that all team members and stakeholders be on the same page. Keep your projects aligned and on schedule with project management tools from Tempo. Strategic Roadmaps visualize your plans for easy communication, while Portfolio Manager offers flexible planning to help you use resources and time efficiently across all projects.

Explore the full suite of Tempo’s tools and find solutions that help your team deliver value to users.