I led the creation of Teladoc’s first organization-wide design principles to set a clear standard for quality and unify teams around shared expectations. Drawing on insights from designers, researchers, and leaders across the company, we defined five actionable principles and paired them with examples and best practices to ensure practical adoption. Within the first month, the principles exceeded our usage targets and became core to reviews, onboarding, and day-to-day design decisions.
As Teladoc’s product ecosystem expanded, I identified a clear risk: design quality was plateauing. This wasn’t just a craft challenge—it threatened our ability to deliver consistent, meaningful experiences that supported our company’s strategic goals.
While individual teams were passionate and skilled, their approaches to quality were increasingly fragmented. Designers were interpreting "good design" differently across product lines, working in silos, and using team-specific standards. We lacked a shared definition of quality, and we lacked the structure to get us there.
Our design organization lacked the mature systems, principles, and rituals typical of high-performing teams. Without clear guardrails, well-intentioned decisions often didn’t scale or align across products.
To grow into a more strategic and cohesive org, we needed to:
As Design Director, I led this effort from the ground up—aligning senior leaders, facilitating workshops across functions, and driving clarity through synthesis. This case study highlights how we co-created a set of design principles that became the foundation for shared critique, hiring standards, onboarding, and cross-team alignment.
To elevate design quality across a growing, distributed organization, I led a focused working group to define a unified set of design principles. This was not a theoretical exercise—it was a deliberate effort to create a practical framework for better decisions, clearer alignment, and consistent outcomes.
We knew we didn’t need to start from scratch. Many teams had already developed principles organically within the scope of individual projects. Our approach was to elevate and synthesize what already existed, then layer in strategic context to ensure the final principles could scale beyond specific products or teams.
We began with a dual-track research effort:
A key insight from this process was that many design principles across companies looked and sounded similar—and that’s not a bad thing. Principles like “keep it simple” or “put users first” are foundational because they are, in theory, common sense. But in practice, we found that "common sense" isn’t always common alignment. Principles fail when they’re too generic, or when teams don’t see their relevance to the work at hand.
That insight led to a tactical shift: every principle we adopted had to be contextualized to our culture and our work at Teladoc. We anchored each principle to a clear articulation of what it means in our environment, referencing our corporate values and brand attributes. This helped turn abstract values into real tools for design decisions, critique, and team alignment.
Our approach was both inclusive and pragmatic—we brought in voices from across the org, validated principles through working sessions, and shaped the final set to feel both aspirational and actionable.
To ensure our design principles were both grounded and adopted, we prioritized inclusivity and intentionality throughout the process.
We knew we didn’t need to start from scratch. Many teams had already developed principles organically within the scope of individual projects. Our approach was to, then layer in strategic context to ensure the final principles could scale beyond specific products or teams.
We wanted the principles to reflect how our teams actually worked, not just how we aspired to work. To do this, we engaged the broader Design, Content, and Research teams through a lightweight interview study. Each member of our small working group of three reached out to a peer they didn’t currently work with directly.
We developed a shared set of open-ended questions and conducted short, informal interviews to gather input. This approach not only surfaced valuable insights but also created early buy-in and a sense of co-creation across the org.
While our initial goal was to understand what principles should say, we quickly realized we also needed to understand what would make them actually useful in practice.
A strong utility theme emerged from synthesis: teams were craving Consistency and Unity. Across interviews, four clear jobs for the principles stood out:
As we cross-referenced interview insights with our internal audit of existing design values and principles, a wide range of potential themes surfaced. We intentionally narrowed our scope to 3–5 principles, which research showed would be memorable enough to influence day-to-day work while broad enough to guide diverse teams without becoming overly prescriptive.
This became our north star for the next phase: defining a set of high-level guardrails that were clear, specific to Teladoc, and applicable across roles and product lines.
Through iterative drafting, feedback sessions, and review with senior stakeholders, we developed a set of five core principles that uniquely represent Teladoc’s approach to care and experience design.
To make them actionable, each principle is paired with a short list of best practices. These best practices zoom in to show what the principle looks like in practice—offering teams examples of how to apply the idea during concept development, critique, and QA.
Together, the principle + best practices format became a powerful framework: broad enough to inspire and unify, yet detailed enough to drive better design decisions.
Each principle includes a core statement and an accompanying set of best practices to show how it can be applied in real work. This structure helped bridge the gap between aspiration and action.
Our experiences are inclusive, accessible, and empathetic. We meet members wherever they are on their health journey, supporting diverse backgrounds, environments, and abilities.
We deliver insightful content to members that engages them in their health and guides them successfully through our experiences, being a true partner in achieving their health goals.
Our products give members confidence in managing their healthcare. The journey can feel unpredictable, so we create clarity and trust at every touchpoint.
Our products are catalysts for empowerment, motivation, and inspiration, fostering a sense of control in users' health journeys.
Our products are cohesive and easy-to-use solutions to the complex problems our members face. Through thoughtful integration, we deliver comprehensive, whole-person care.
From the beginning, we knew alignment wasn’t enough—we needed the principles to be adopted in practice. That’s why we made co-creation a central part of the process, involving designers from across the org in interviews, feedback sessions, and reviews. This helped ensure the final principles felt relevant, not top-down.
To keep momentum going, we created “Stories”—short case studies highlighting how individual designers were applying the principles in their daily work. These real examples helped teams see the value of the principles in action and made them easier to adopt across teams.
By pairing shared authorship with real-world use, we turned abstract principles into practical, usable tools—and made it far more likely they’d stick.
The outcome of this work was a shared definition of design quality that aligned our teams and raised the bar across the organization. With clearer guidance and a common language, teams were better equipped to deliver consistent, high-quality outcomes.
We set a clear KPI: track at least 10 documented examples of principle adoption by the end of 2024. Within the first month, we surpassed this target, confirming strong early traction and team engagement.
Next, we’ll build on that momentum by sending out a feedback survey to gather deeper insight into how the principles are being used, where they’re adding value, and where we can evolve them further.
Leading the development of Experience Principles taught me that while many principles are universal, their true power lies in how they are uniquely applied within your organization. This journey showed me how to turn abstract values into tangible behaviors and transform design quality into an everyday habit.