Build a Product
Based on Values
NELA DUNATO

Have we achieved our goals?

Metrics can take the
attention away from the impact
our product is making on the
humans who are using it.

When products cause harm

“If you see your friends have a lot of streaks, you’re
like, ‘Whoa, that guy knows a lot of people.’ It
shows their social status to see how many streaks
they have. But also, some people don’t care.”
“My friends get freaked out if I don’t
keep up a streak, so I just do.”
“I have friends who treat it mostly like business.
It’s something they just have to put in work
to maintain. They send snaps every morning
or every night that just say ‘streak.’”
“One time, my friend Madison got her phone taken
away, so she asked me to do her streaks. It was easy,
I just logged in and sent streaks to all her recents.”

Introducing
Core Values

Values are our strongest principles
or standards of behaviour
that govern our choices.

“Values are guideposts that guide our life,
and forces that attract us towards certain
actions that lead to their realization.
There is a specific hierarchy of values
within us, which we’re usually unaware
of until we focus our attention to it with
the explicit goal of making it conscious.”
ŽIVORAD MIHAJLOVIĆ SLAVINSKI
Serbian psychologist

Core values have the biggest
impact on our decisions.

“It’s not hard to make decisions when
you know what your values are.”
ROY E. DISNEY
Former senior executive for The
Walt Disney Company
Photo: Disney

MISSION = “why we exist”
VISION = “where we are heading in the future”
CORE VALUES = “what behavioral norms
every team member is expected to uphold
when collaborating with others”

SKILLSVALUES

“We believe that it’s really important
to come up with core values that
you can commit to. And by commit,
we mean that you’re willing to
hire and fire based on them.”
TONY HSIEH
CEO of Zappos
Photo: Jake Chessum

Core values can help you
engage your team.

“When the values of the organisation
are in alignment with the personal
and desired culture values of
employees, you will experience
high levels of employee engagement.
People will bring their discretionary
energy to their work and go the
extra mile to get the job done.”
RICHARD BARRETT
Founder of the Barrett Values Centre

Authentic values that you
demonstrate through your
product, brand and marketing
attract a loyal audience.

Shared values build relationships
64% of the consumers
in the 2012 Harvard
Business Review study
stated shared values as
the primary reason they
have a brand relationship.

WHO
APPRECIATES
US & OUR
APPROACH
TO WORK?
WHO NEEDS
THE VALUE
WE CAN
PROVIDE?
WHO SHARES
OUR VALUE
SYSTEM?
IDEAL
CLIENT

Personal core values

What made you want to become
a designer/developer?

What annoys you in your
professional world?

If you had all the money you
needed, what would you
change about your career?

Business/team core values

Why did you decide to
create your product?

What do you want to achieve
through this product and
your business—for yourself,
and for your customers?

What would you never, ever
sacrifice no matter how much
money, approval, or fame
you’re offered in return?

Core values in
decision making

“So many decisions get made by not
deciding at all. We should try to
fight the instinct to avoid difficult
conversations, because passive
choices are choices nonetheless.”
LU HAN
Product Designer at Spotify

1
BUSINESS
STRATEGY

“Stick by the values you chose in the
beginning. Just because it may be cheaper
to run your business another way, it’s
not the right decision if it compromises
your beliefs. Your customers want to see
that you practice what you preach.We
don’t believe that every decision should be
based on how it affects the bottom line.”
LUKE HOLDEN
Founder of Luke’s Lobster
Photo: David Williams

Is our business model aligned
with our core values?

Are the KPI-s we’re
measuring merely vanity
metrics, or do they show our
commitment to our values?

Will this new product further
our core values, or is it a
distraction from them?

2
PRODUCT
DESIGN &
DEVELOPMENT

“Core Values address how we use our
emotional intelligence to accomplish
work, versus our intelligence and/
or technical expertise, in what
we are trying to achieve.”
JENNELL EVANS
CEO of Strategic Interactions, Inc.

“Technology is never neutral: certain
design decisions enable or restrict
the ways in which material objects
may be used, and those decisions
feed back into the myths and
symbols we think are meaningful.”
HELEN NISSENBAUM
Professor of Information Science
at the Cornell Tech

Is this new feature we’re
considering aligned with
our values, or would it
go against them?

Do we have any features
that were implemented for
short-sighted reasons that
caused unintended harm?

Is this feature taking into account
“edge cases” and the experiences
of marginalized groups?

Does the interface design and
copy demonstrate our values?

3
BRANDING &
MARKETING
STRATEGY

“Every action you’re taking to get your
prospects’ attention tells a story about
your brand. Do you want to come
across as a pushy, desperate brand?
Or would you rather be perceived as
a relaxed and confident brand?”
NELA DUNATO
“The Human Centered Brand”

Does our brand voice and
tone reflect our values?

Are the visuals on our website
or app aligned with our values?

Are we communicating our values
effectively through our advertising
and content marketing?

What might be the unintended
negative impact of this
marketing campaign?

4
CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIPS

Do we have an easy to use
feedback system that enables
us to hear our users’ concerns?

Are we holding ourselves
accountable to our users?

How will we apologize and make
amends when we mess up?

Who did it well?

“An organization’s values and
individuals’ values need to match
for either to succeed. When people go
into a decision-making room with
other people [...] it’s nice to know that
everybody is on the same page in terms
of the values, against which they’re
going to be measuring their decisions.”
DAVID FRADIN
Former product manager at HP and Apple

Issuu principles
• We must listen to each other.
• You should not be the only person knowing this.
• We should give users the best possible experience.
• There should be no surprises.
• We should never be afraid of committing.
• Any feedback loop should be as short as possible.

“In all we do, we try to further our focus
on those values. Any discussions are
very constructive because we can always
evaluate our solutions against our guiding
principles and see the results through
data. It gives great satisfaction to work
like this. The whole team enjoys working
together, our code quality is excellent and
we agree on the overall goal and direction.”
SØREN VIND
Software Engineer at Issuu

Kanban values
• Understanding
• Agreement
• Respect
• Leadership
• Flow
• Customer Focus
• Transparency
• Balance
• Collaboration

“I set myself the task of describing the
‘humane, start with what you do now
approach to change’ not as a productivity
tool, but as a management method
built around a strong framework of
values—a way to help organizations
work better for their people, their
customers, and other stakeholders.”
MIKE BURROWS
“Kanban from the Inside”

Values are a powerful tool
for creating a positive
impact in the world.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MY BOOK:
humancenteredbrand.com
SAY HI OR A.M.A:
@nelchee
GET THE SLIDES AT:
bit.ly/nelavalues