Every decision made sits on these foundational pillars.

As a global company with a goal of creating a better world, UL digital products should aim to be as inclusive as possible to all types of users. 

• Include accessibility: applications should make every effort to include users with varying levels of ability, which may include impaired eyesight, color blindness, variations in manual dexterity. Where possible, applications should support assistive technology to make products usable by all users. 
• Think universally: as a company that operates in many corners of the globe, design should recognize and accommodate cultural differences in design where appropriate. Design may need to support multiple languages (translations), ISO formats (localization) and cultural mores (internationalization). This may impact color choices, design metaphors and imagery (photos and illustrations).

Designing for inclusiveness does not mean designing for the lowest common denominator, but rather the flexibility to accommodate targeted presentation and a variety of media. 

Consistency is usability, and we should make every effort to be as consistent as possible in design.

• Adopt common digital conventions: users spend a lot of time on the web and web-based applications, and they spend more time on other sites than they spend on ours. Users expect our products to work like the other sites they use, and therefore we should err on the side of following common conventions and modeling popular sites over introducing new patterns or functionality. 
• Follow best practices & standards: along similar lines, the current web ecosystem has evolved with a variety of good practices and standards (accessibility coding, for example) that should be followed in UX, design and coding. 
• Follow brand guidelines: UL, too, has mature brand guidelines and conventions. These will serve to unify digital properties when implemented consistently, always reinforcing and improving the users’ proficiency with UL digital products. 
• Create internal consistency: all components should form a family and use similar visual and behavioral cues to indicate state and affordance. Consistency in both look and behavior amongst elements allows new components to be understood more rapidly, which increases learnability and reduces cognitive load.

Efficient design should strive to help users complete their tasks as quickly and effortlessly as possible, advancing their goals and objectives. 

• Make the complex simple: the language and design of our systems should aim for simplicity, making complex products and processes easier to manage and complete.  
• Strive for good performance: considering the technical implications of design will help users move through processes with efficiency. Large images or large numbers of images, for example, may adversely affect download times, so working with developers on solutions or modifying design for different platforms will greatly enhance users’ overall experience. 
• Design reusable, efficient components: easy-to-use components that appear throughout UL products means development and adoption of new UL digital properties happens more quickly and easily for designers, developers and end users. 
• Communicate with clarity: components should be clear in a number of ways:  
  • Show information clearly;
  • Show state clearly;
  • Be clear about the consequences of interaction.

While consistency and convention will generally make for good usability, context must play an important role in specific situations. 

• Acknowledge specificity: Context plays an important factor when designing for users. Components that work well on desktop browsers may require modification on small touch devices. Patterns that apply to an audience of one set of users may not apply to another executing a nominally similar task (e.g. nurses vs chemical engineers). Designing for a specific context that provides clarity to the user is always preferable to ill-fitting consistency. 
• Accommodate a variety of expertise: Keep the users’ experience in mind. Ideally, simplicity of design should lead to usability for new users and efficiency for power users. Components should indicate their usage; but, while adoption of new applications or features may require some ramp up, the affordances for new users should not impede experienced user. 
• Provide contextual help: Always provide the user with the help they need in the situation it’s needed. This may include introductory onboarding screens, component tooltips, FAQs, clear validation error messages and explanatory help text.

Ultimately, every aspect of design should be for the user, centering the user’s needs as the most important aspect of good design. 

• Respect users: Respecting users includes respecting their time as it relates to speed and attention. Digital products should be efficient, allowing users to focus on their work without interference. Applications should not unnecessarily engage user attention where unnecessary for task completion, while still allowing products being a pleasure to use. 
• Reach out, measure & incorporate feedback: Learn who is using the products and gather their feedback whenever possible. Implement and use analytics on existing products. Then engage and improve via remote testing and interviews as key users are identified.