Many of us are aware of the benefits of following design principles in technology and digital projects. Design principles:
1) Provide guidelines to design solutions
2) Help with consensus building
3) Speed decision making
For e.g. when different people have differing views, running against the design principles helps the team narrow the design options and choose the recommended solution.
Here are the six design principles for technology projects based on our experience. Most principles can be applied to any digital, technology and construction project and across many industries in addition to real estate.
1) Requirements or design should clearly demonstrate value i.e. usefulness to users
2) Follow industry best practices – Many have walked through this path before, there is no need to “reinvent the wheel” unless it is a competitive differentiator
3) Differentiate between business “need” and “want” and prioritize
4) Keep it simple – Solution should be simple for users to adopt and these are usually the best solutions
5) Leverage platform capabilities “out of the box” – Avoid customization unless it is to implement best practices; this helps to keep the solution simple and standard
6) Don’t aim for perfection – Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good as it isn’t attainable