#8–Dieter Rams 10 Principles of Good Design

Principles are short statements of what’s important to you. Knowing what’s important and in what order is necessary for decision-making since everything is a trade-off. If you don’t have a priority stack it means you’re making decisions intuitively, which is fine for an artist working alone, but not for the Product Manager working in a team.

Defining principles with your team creates a shared priority stack. A good set of principles dramatically speeds up the product development process because it gives everyone confidence to make decisions without consulting you. It also preempts endless debates about every detail by front-loading them into a contained period of discussion.

Principles emerge from lived experience. After hundreds of decisions, patterns start to emerge. Turn a pattern into a memorable phrase and you have a principle. The 10 Commandments are a set of principles (although written more forcefully, as the gods do). They emerged after noticing that the people who had miserable lives made the same decisions in a given set of circumstances. These patterns were so clear and consistent that they could be carved into stone — no editing needed.

When it comes to consumer products, the Design Moses is Dieter Rams. Even if you’ve not heard his name, you’ve definitely experienced his influence as he was the primary inspiration for Jony Ive and Apple’s most iconic products. In fact, when put side-by-side, many of Apple’s products actually look like the V2 of Rams ones.

Jony Ive’s designs looking like V2’s of Dieter Rams'

In the 1980s, Dieter Rams wrote the 10 Principles of Design and have spawned a whole industry of poster printing. What’s most striking about them is their simplicity and that they’re still relevant and useful today. No wonder they’re called “The 10 Commandments of Design” — it’s like they were handed down by the gods. (Timelessness is a hallmark of great principles.)

Every Product Manager working on consumer products should deeply internalize Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles. It’s also time we’ll spent to watch the “Rams” documentary by Gary Hustwit (creator of Helvetica and Objectified).

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