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Anti-principles are the opposite of best practices—common pitfalls or approaches you should avoid when building an app. Recognizing anti-principles helps teams focus on what not to do, saving time, money, and user trust.
Why It Matters
Avoiding mistakes is as vital as making the right choices.
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Prevents common errors that often lead to project failure.
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Saves resources by steering clear of costly dead ends.
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Clarifies team focus by aligning everyone on what the app shouldn’t become.
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Protects user trust by avoiding frustrating design or feature decisions.
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Sharpens strategy with clear boundaries on scope and goals.
Use This Term When…
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Defining your product strategy and boundaries.
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Establishing design or development guidelines.
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Kicking off a project with a new or expanded team.
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Reviewing MVP scope or planning future phases.
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Reflecting on lessons learned from previous builds or user feedback.
Real-World Example
In one of the fintech app, we identified anti-principles like feature bloat and over-engineering early on. Actively avoiding these helped the team deliver a focused, impactful product without wasted time or budget overruns.
Founder Insight
Founders often focus on what to build—but just as important is what not to build. Anti-principles serve as guardrails to prevent scope creep, design complexity, and unnecessary features that dilute your core value.
Key Metrics & Concepts
| Metric / Concept | What It Indicates |
|---|---|
| Scope Creep | Shows lack of clear anti-principles, leading to uncontrolled growth. |
| Bounce Rate | May signal ignored anti-principles like slow load times harming UX. |
| Support Ticket Volume | Spikes often result from violating anti-principles. |
| Feature Bloat | Indicates too many unnecessary features without anti-principle checks. |
| Drop-Off Analysis | Validates decisions to exclude problematic interactions. |
Tools & Technologies
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Confluence – Document your project principles and anti-principles in a shared space.
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Miro – Visually map out “What to Avoid” in features and flows.
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Notion – Easily maintain and share lists of anti-principles like “What this app is NOT.”
What’s Next
Anti-principles are increasingly baked into UX and Agile workflows. AI-driven tools are emerging to spot “failure flags” early by analyzing app behavior and user feedback, helping teams avoid anti-patterns before they take root.
Related Terms
Product Principles · Feature Creep · User-Centric Design · Technical Debt · Lean UX
Helpful Resources
5 Anti-Principles of Web Design
Call to Action
Need help defining what your app shouldn’t do? Book a discovery call with EB Pearls and we’ll help you craft sharp anti-principles to keep your build focused, lean, and impactful.