Filters

DESIGN CONTEXT

What are you trying to do?

Scroll sideways within the map to explore all columns.

PRACTICES IN COMBINATION

Put the elements
to work.

Start with a situation. Each playbook connects a few practices into a sequence you can adapt to the work in front of you.

CHOOSE YOUR STARTING POINT

Use your judgment, return to earlier steps, and change the sequence as you learn.

IDEAS, CONNECTED TO PRACTICE

Follow the thinking.

Explore books, authors, and practice libraries through the ideas you can use. Each path connects the source to relevant elements in this reference.

READING PATHS

YOUR COLLECTION

Your working set.

Save the practices you want to return to. Build a reference for your next project, team conversation, or decision.

SAVED ELEMENTSSTORED IN THIS BROWSER

Restore from file

Includes saved items, existing notes, and completed activities. Restore this file on another device to move your collection.

ABOUT ELEMENTS

Design is a practice.
Keep building yours.

A field guide to the questions, actions, and decisions that shape useful design work.

THE ORGANIZING IDEA

Eight families.
Many ways to work.

This reference connects design principles, methods, craft skills, and leadership practices. Eight families describe their purpose; disciplines and situations help you find the right level of detail.

The periodic-table format is a map, not a scientific model. Symbols identify practices and positions group families; neither prescribes a sequence or a level of seniority.

The table opens with 48 foundations and continues into specialist series. Every element is also available in the searchable catalog. Reading paths connect books and public libraries to shared ideas.

PRACTICES

DISCIPLINES

SOURCES

CHOOSE YOUR LEVEL

Useful at
different scales.

Designer: Build foundations in research, craft, accessibility and delivery.
Senior practitioner: Handle complex systems, evidence, experiments and emerging technologies.
Design leader: Grow people, run a healthy practice and coordinate decisions.
Executive: Set direction, invest resources and govern responsibly.

HOW TO USE IT

Begin with the
question you have.

topics have a visual interactive example.

Follow the curriculum, search for a practice, or choose the problem you need to solve. Try a decision in a picture, see what changes, and learn the principle behind it. Apply it to a new situation, then make a plan for your own work and keep a recall card.

How AI changes the practice explains what stays, which steps change, and what new problems need attention. Each practice includes a question to apply to your own work.

The growth curriculum connects visual and interaction craft to customer evidence and product outcomes. Fourteen lessons and four practice labs help you build, measure, and learn with product managers and engineers. Follow two Senior practitioner units and four cases with feedback on each decision.

Search a practice or open a playbook. Each element has a short lesson (Try, See, Learn, Apply, Use), an About tab and an At work tab.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE LINEAGE

Ideas have histories.

The periodic-table approach to design has earlier precedents, including Andrea L. Yip’s 2011 exploration. That work helped inspire this format.

Elements has its own selection, organization, explanations, and interface. It is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Andrea L. Yip or the other authors referenced.

READING & REFERENCES

FOLLOW THE IDEAS FURTHER

How AI changes the practice

Find your next useful move.

Put the elements to work.

Follow the thinking.

Your working set.

Design is a practice.Keep building yours.

Eight families.Many ways to work.

Useful atdifferent scales.

Begin with thequestion you have.