B&M experience values

At B&M, we believe in co-creation and consistency. We are creating this design system to establish, manage, and scale our presence, this will drastically simplify and improve everyone’s work within the team as well as provide future high-value opportunities for growth.

These values are at the heart of how we build experiences at B&M. They’re important whether you work at B&M or you’re developing third-party apps or themes.

Our approach

The best part of this shared set of values is the conversations they enable. They are fantastic lenses through which to view, critique, and improve our work. We always aspire for B&M experiences to feel:

Considerate

Build an experience on top of a toolkit, that works on every screen, on every platform, in every language, internationally.
In order to do this we need to understand where we can build for a general audience, and where we should offer different avenues for different needs.
This is a work in progress – as we’ve just created version 0.1.0, feel free to reach out with any questions or feedback.

Empowering

You will find comprehensive studies on how to help users complete their tasks, without compromising decisions or independence.
Optimize for the most important tasks without hindering anything else people would like to do.
Get rid of complexity where you can, but give people access to more advanced features if they need it.

Crafted

B&M experience is being created with the highest level of craftsmanship. Through thoughtful details and small touches, we combine the power of professional tools with the simplicity of consumer products.

Work to understand the pain points users face, then find clear and viable solutions to those issues.
Delight people with how powerful and effective the experience is, not with extra decoration or flair.
Look for consistent ways to make experiences more inspiring, friendly, and thoughtful.

Trustworthy

We constantly work to recharge our users’ trust batteries. We sweat the details. We’re genuine and transparent to show users that we’re always acting in their best interest.

Fix the small mistakes and inconsistencies that erode trust.
Be transparent about what a feature or tool can do and what it can’t.
Make safe and positive actions frictionless. If they’re risky, give clear instructions and greater control. Make it easy to recover from mistakes.

Efficient

B&M experience is here to help people achieve their goals quickly, accurately, and with less effort. We value speed and simplicity, but we value productivity even more.

Break complex tasks down into easy steps, and eliminate repetitive tasks whenever you can.
Highlight important decisions, then let users get back to work.
Give users the ability to reduce and optimize their flow through automation.

Familiar

We want people to feel comfortable using our products, whether it’s their first time using them or their hundredth. Our experiences should embody the same principles, act the same way, and fit together seamlessly.

Think bigger than any individual task or product. Understand the context users are working in.
Use familiar patterns to make experiences intuitive and recognizable.
Evolve experiences seamlessly. They should keep getting better with time and information.