Skip to content

Design principles

These principles underlie the way we 'do design' at nib. They encourage us to continue striving to produce elegant products and solutions that best balance the needs of our end users with our business goals. We strive to pursue these in all design work we undertake, and encourage anyone working on design to do the same.

Put users first

We always start with “Why?”. We consider more than a single data point, and are not driven to solutions by pure numbers. We strive to use both qualitative and quantitative user feedback, from interviews and surveys to onsite metrics, at every stage of our design process.

This ensures we keep our users at the heart of everything we do.

Keep it simple

We strive to keep our design solutions simple. This encompasses things from our visual aesthetic, to the language we use, to the features we do/don't include in a product - just because you can say/do more doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. We don't attempt to reinvent the wheel.

Ultimately, we strive for our solutions to do one thing, and to do it well.

Design for all

We design to be inclusive. Considering both form and function, we strive to ensure all users can successfully access, consume, and relate to our design solutions.

For information regarding our position on web accessibility, please read our accessibility statement.

Show, don't tell

We collaborate and involve each other and our stakeholders in the design process. When presenting our designs, we show the process of finding a solution, and demonstrate the outcome rather than explaining it. We use prototypes and flows to show, rather than spreadsheets and abstract figures to tell.

Iterate, iterate, iterate

Something small is better than nothing at all. We get feedback early in our design process, and use prototypes at varying fidelities to test, analyse and refine our solutions. We release MVPs and use feedback to improve our designs.

See the bigger picture

We strive to keep in mind that the whole is often greater than the sum of its' parts. We use design economies across our platforms and products to ensure a more efficient design process for ouselves, and more importantly a cohesive experience for our end-users. How our component level designs fit within a page or product is considered, as is how an individual interaction or experience fits within the wider business context.