James McQuarrie is a UK based Product Manager and UX Consultant who helps design, build and deliver digital products and services that delight their users.

10 point Design Manifesto – "my top 10 web design principles"

When I first joined ProcServe one of the first things I wanted to do was get across to the development team I work with what my views on web design were. In a tongue-in-cheek attempt at this I wrote up the ProcServe Design Manifesto, printed it off and handed it round the team. While it started as a bit of a joke, it has actually gone down very well and has even made a bit of an impact outside of the dev team.

I thought I’d share it here and ask you, my readers, if you would change any of these principles or add any additional ones if this was your manifesto?

  1. Software is for real people not “users”
  2. User people centered design and development
  3. Every task or process should be goal driven
  4. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should
  5. We’re selling an experience, not software
  6. Progressively enhance and gracefully degrade
  7. How something is implemented is just as important as how it works and looks
  8. If you can take a step in the process away and the goal can still be achieved, do it
  9. Accessibility is for everyone
  10. Software is a tool for helping people do a job