Principles

I work through four principles that operate in sequence. Each one depends on the previous.

They're not theory. They're tests I apply to everything I design.

Invitation is how a system approaches you before it asks anything of you. Does it guide or impose? Create space or apply pressure? Respect your agency or quietly override it?

If the invitation is wrong, no amount of usability can correct what follows.

Recognition is the feeling that a system understands why you're there. Not through personalisation or data recall—through behaviour that meets you as an individual, not a segment.

Trust doesn't begin with functionality. It begins with recognition.

Coherence ensures every part of a system reinforces the same intent—across language, behaviour, technology, brand, and organisation. When coherence is present, systems feel inevitable rather than assembled.

This is where design moves beyond artefacts and becomes structural.

Continuity is the discipline of ensuring meaning holds over time. I design for memory, not moments. For relationships, not transactions. For systems that mature without losing integrity.

Continuity is how design earns credibility—not through repetition, but through consistency of care.

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I'll show you what this looks like in practice.

Years ago, I was sitting in traffic. Not moving, not really thinking, just my hand resting at the bottom of the steering wheel, two fingertips barely touching it. Then I realised both fingers were perfectly placed in two small indentations.

Someone had thought about that moment. How I'd hold the wheel when I wasn't driving, when I was just existing with it. That level of recognition, of understanding not just function, but presence—changed how I thought about design.

Compare that to another car I drove years later. It had a similar looking sports steering wheel—dramatic contours at ten and two, meant to feel performance-oriented. But the rest was just round. It fulfilled the brief of "steering wheel," but it never thought about me. About how I'd actually interact with it across contexts.

Bad design didn't think about me. It thought about fulfilling requirements.

Good design recognised me, even in moments I didn't expect it to.

That's the difference between systems that work and systems that feel right. Between design that checks boxes and design that earns its place in someone's life.