Design

The following exercise will help you state your intent and clarify your language with other people.

• First, choose a set of adjectives you want your users to use to describe what you’re making.


• Then, choose a set of adjectives that you’re okay with not being used to describe the same thing.

I find these rules helpful during this exercise:

• When put toget

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When we jump into a task without thinking about what we’re trying to accomplish, we can end up with solutions to the wrong problem. We can waste energy that would be better spent determining which direction to take.

When deciding what you’re doing, ask yourself:

• What are you trying to change? What is your vision for the future? What is within your ab

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Every decision you make should support what you’ve defined as good: from the words you choose to the tasks you enable, and everything in between.

When you’re making decisions, balance what your stakeholders and users expect of you, along with what they believe to be good.

Having a strong why will get you further. Having a weak why won’t make it any easier to get up in the morning. Your why should be part of everything you do, not just your mission statement.

Why? Because without a clear reason for doing something, even the most committed and loyal person will eventually abandon the hope of finishing the task.

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Users: Who are your intended users? What do you know about them? How can you get to know them better? How might they describe this mess?

Stakeholders: Who are your stakeholders? What are their expectations? What are their thoughts about this mess? How might they describe it?

Information: What interpretations are you dealing with? What information is ... See more