My design values (2024)

When I started learning UX and Product Design I was overwhelmed — so many skills I need to master, so many fields to choose from, so many tools to learn, so many talented people around! Should I forget all my experience so far and start from a blank page? Should I focus only on one field of design and go deep or try to learn a little bit of everything? And most importantly — do I have what it takes to create new products that would make a difference?

One thing I remember from my psychology studies — the fundamental thing to guide us in life are our values. They are the North star in creating our path in the always changing world and the key to our happiness. Turned out the same goes to the values in our work!

Design Values are the fundamental principals that define us and stay with us even when technology, context and the world changes. We are all different and we will approach design problems in our unique way — and that is how our design values come through. Thinking about my Design Values helped me realize what kind of a designer I want to be and how my life and work experience have shaped me so far.

I am happy to share my Design Values with you:

Every time I start a new project or see a new problem I feel excited about the fact that there is so much that I don’t know yet. I always ask myself what is there for me to learn about users, industry, problem, fields and existing solutions. I love exploring new businesses and industries, how do they work and what are the needs and pain points for people throughout the whole journey.

What does it mean in practice?

• Constant learning new skills and knowledge that I might need for the project through workshops, online courses, books and articles
• Interviews with stakeholders to find out about their business processes and goals and how can I help them
• Field research, observations and user interviews to learn what challenges people have and how they are solving it now
• User testing to learn how people are using our products in the real world, not in the dream world we imagined
• Working in different industries like retail, automotive dealer, insurance, advertising, logistics and freelancers to learn about different business structures and customer journeys

I am fascinated with exploring various cultures! It is a true joy for me to find out common behaviours in different cultures and the foundational values behind them. I believe that nowadays we should always think how our products would be perceived around the world — what could be offensive, or unclear, or useless?

What does it mean in practice?

• Striving to work in international environments and have already worked on projects for over 80 countries around the world
• Interviews with experts from different cultures to learn about cultural specifics
• Ensure that samples for user research to include people from different cultures/countries
• Product localization for different countries including IA, UX writing, languages, devices, colours etc.

For me, empathy is a way to look at the world from lots of different perspectives — trying to imagine myself in the context of other people, with their history, values and perception. I know that I will never be able able to understand other people fully and as a human being, I still see the world through my own life experience and bias. That is why I find it so important to practice empathy by looking at the usual things through the eyes of the third person as much as possible.

What does it mean in practice?

• Studying psychology taught me to be aware of my own assumptions and biases and always remember there are lots of other ways to think and act in the same situations
• Experience in counselling and assessment centers helps me to observe behaviours and interview people about their values and meanings they put in their actions and decisions.
• Whenever start redesign product or process — going through it myself when possible to try being in other’s shoes or shadowing other people.

Recently I was reading a lot about the unethical ways design could manipulate people to spend more and more time in the product. For me, it is important to find new ways to bring joy and fun into the experience without harming the quality of people’s lives. I see that as an exciting challenge — how to use gamification principles and emotional design in a good and ethical way to create products that would help live happier lives.

What does it mean in practice?

• Studying behaviour psychology and neuropsychology to get insights into the ways our brain make decisions and how design impacts that
• Using my experience in Learning Design to find ways to engage and motivate people to reach their goals to enrich their lives
• Looking for best practices in ethical design and ways to implement it
• Researching long-term effects of using products/services and how they impact people’s life satisfaction

Product Designers do not just create solutions and features that they are asked to create — they are the people who would ask questions first and find the core problem. What is in the core of people’s behaviour, what brings pain, how they are solving it know — these are the most intriguing and fascinating questions.

What does it mean in practice?

• Using “5 Why” and “Fishbone Ishikawa Diagram” to find out the root cause before designing possible solutions
• Setting specific metrics to measure behaviour and experience and choose the appropriate research tool
• Cross-functional collaboration with different stakeholders to create a multi-dimensional picture of the process
• Using User Flows and Customer Journey maps to analyze the whole customer experience and find possible issues

I found it very beneficial to formulate my Design Values as it helped me understand what to focus on in my continuous learning journey. Thank you so much for reading and I would be happy to hear about your Design Values!