How do you compare your design solutions to best practices?

1 Why compare your design to best practices?

Comparing your design to best practices can help you evaluate your design quality, identify areas of improvement, and justify your design decisions. Through comparison, you can ensure that your design fulfills basic requirements of functionality, usability, and accessibility. Additionally, you can check if it follows the conventions and patterns of your domain, industry, or platform. Moreover, it can provide new ideas, inspiration, or solutions that you may have missed. You can also validate your design assumptions, hypotheses, or choices with evidence or feedback. Lastly, you can communicate your design rationale and value proposition to clients, stakeholders, or users.

2 How to find best practices for your design?

When designing a project, there are many sources of best practices to consider, depending on the scope, goals, and context. Design guidelines are official documents or resources that provide rules, recommendations, or examples for a certain platform, device, or system. For instance, Material Design guidelines are used for Android apps and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for web design. Additionally, design systems are collections of reusable components, patterns, and styles that define the visual and functional language of a brand. Design books, blogs, and podcasts are also valuable sources of information on various aspects of design. Finally, design case studies, portfolios, and awards can be referenced to view successful or innovative design projects or solutions.

3 How to compare your design to best practices?

When comparing your design to best practices, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, but you can follow some general steps. Firstly, define your design criteria - such as navigation, layout, typography, color, or interaction - and select your best practices sources. After that, analyze and compare your design to the best practices using a SWOT analysis. Finally, document and communicate your findings with tables, charts, screenshots, or mockups. By doing so, you can provide a summary or recommendation based on your analysis.

4 When to compare your design to best practices?

Comparing your design to best practices is a beneficial exercise at any stage of the design process, but it is especially useful during the initial and final phases. Before you start designing, it can help you define your design requirements, scope, and direction, while also allowing you to avoid reinventing the wheel or making unnecessary mistakes. After you finish designing, comparing your design to best practices can help you evaluate your design outcomes, refine your design details, and validate your design solutions. It can also be a great way to prepare for user testing, feedback, or presentation.

5 What are the limitations of comparing your design to best practices?

Comparing your design to best practices can be a valuable tool for improving design quality, but it is not a substitute for user research, testing, or feedback. Best practices are not universal, absolute, or static; they may vary depending on the context, audience, or purpose of your design and can change over time. Therefore, you should use best practices as a reference and starting point, not a rule or end point. Additionally, best practices should be used as a support and not a substitute; you should always validate your design solutions with real users, data, or feedback and iterate or improve based on the results. Ultimately, strive to create original, innovative, or differentiated design solutions that add value or delight to your users, clients, or stakeholders.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?