Deliver
Design Debt
The build-up of design shortcuts and inconsistencies that keep costing people time or effort.
What is Design Debt?
The build-up of design shortcuts and inconsistencies that keep costing people time or effort.
What you learn
Repair first the compromise that costs people the most, repeatedly.
When it helps
shortcuts create recurring effort for users, or small changes have become expensive.
Use it at work
- List the known compromises in the experience.
- Estimate how often each one costs someone time or money.
- Rank them by recurring cost.
- Fix the most costly, and stop new debt at its source.
Your output
List your design debts with how often each one costs someone time or money. Fix the biggest recurring cost first.
Watch for
Fixing the debt that annoys the team most instead of what costs users most.
Related practices
Sources
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