"Design starts at the top of a company with the company mission. Then the company vision. It’s very hard to do great design in an organisation without a clear a

"Design starts at the top of a company with the company mission. Then the company vision. It’s very hard to do great design in an organisation without a clear and actionable mission and vision. Don’t underestimate the importance of this. If your company lacks a clear mission, make it your job to facilitate the creation of one." This is so true. It's way to easy to get lost in creating beautiful designs, oohing and ahhing at little neat interactions, etc. But if it's not fulfilling the initial goal of what you're trying to accomplish it's sadly a waste of time and resources. That's not to say you can't accomplish both (beautiful design that also meets the goals of the app) - but it's a lot harder than it sounds. And very easy to get derailed. Setting up some periodic checkpoints along the way to keep checking back that you're still on target can definitely help.