From our start, we felt it was important to align on a few key product, design and engineering principles to help guide all of us in making consistent decisions on how we design and build products at Flow. These principles serve as guides for HOW we go about creating products - everything we build should be tested against these principles.
Product Principles.
- Consumer-Focused. We build and design with the perspective of building wonderful experiences for our client’s consumers.
- Client-Focused. We build and design for clients who may not be technically inclined at all - creating intuitive, elegant, and empowering interfaces to control merchant commerce needs.
- Data-Driven. Decisions on what product should be built and how are based on real data coming from clients, customers, and users.
- Modular. Products, to the extent possible, are always accessible individually and independently. Clients are able to use our platform to solve one problem without having to integrate with other parts.
- Transparent. Flow always seeks to empower our clients with the right information to make great decisions for their business. Information should be accessible, displayed and not hidden - we should not have to make the client ask.
Engineering Principles.
- Efficient Delivery of Software. Design API First w/ automation. Continuous Delivery to minimize integration / debug cycles, “One way to do things” to invest in making our way robust, known, and fully supported. Run no infra – leverage cloud for everything we can.
- Value Today w/ Plan for Scalability. Careful design of interfaces. Be humble,pragmatic and recognize nothing is perfect – focus on the best next step for Flow. Balance urgency and be intentional about tradeoffs, shifting towards long term and enduring as products mature.
- Always be Learning. Be intentional about the decisions you make, embrace Blameless Post Mortems to focus on learning and transparency. Become an expert in your domain.
Design Principles.
- Simple. Our design should be perceived as simple in its nature, easy to learn and use.
- Consistent. Our design remains organized and predictable regardless of device, entry path, or time of visit.
- Delightful. Our design strives to exceed expectations and render the workflow in pleasant ways.
- Clear Mental Model. Our design represents information structure and workflow in an approachable and accurate manner
5. Implicitly Educational. Our design directs people progressively through their workflow with sufficient guidance.
