I found Valve’s handbook on Foo’s blog recently. I highly recommend reading it. It’s not just well designed, it’s well thought out.
Not every company can be like Valve, but why not borrow some of their ideas. This hand book feels honest, entertaining and sets awesome expectations. Here’s an excerpt:
Valve will be a different company a few years from now because you are going to change it for the better. We can’t wait to see where you take us. The products, features, and experiences that you decide to create for customers are the things that will define us.
Whether it’s a new game, a feature in Steam, a way to save customers money, a painting that teaches us what’s beautiful, something that protects us from legal threats, a new typeface, an idea for how to be healthier while we work, a new hat-making tool for TF2, a spectacular animation, a new kind of test that lets us be smarter, a game controller that can tell whether you’re scared or a toy that makes four-year-olds laugh, or (more likely) something nobody’s thought of yet—we can’t wait to see what kind of future you choose to build at Valve.
Anyone want to work on a new employee handbook? 🙂
i can help out if you got limited resources. i havent done design work in a while but manuals are fun to me lol i worked on a manual for mcdonalds a couple yrs ago…implemented by one of their financial officers that projected a savings of $20mil or something annually. it’d be a fun side project haha
Ah man, that’s nuts. You still have a copy of the manual you designed for McDonalds? I’d love to see it!
i do but unfortunately im forbidden to show it to anyone cuz mcdonalds lol i cant even show the icons i designed for it (TT^TT)Â
Bummer man!
@jeffwongdesign:disqus tell me about it! back when i was with a design agency we did a lot of prototyping for companies and a clause in the company’s contracts said something along the lines of “no employee will show [your prototype] project in their portfolio for 2 years” lol it was pretty harsh