My Product Design Principles

Theosis, becoming like God, is the highest aim.

God forms beauty, order, and meaning out of chaos through speaking. He evaluates what He makes, seeing that it is good.

Creating goodness in the world is an act of reflecting God, imaging Him, and uniting with Him.

Meaning exists in the fusion of what the creator intends, what the medium signifies, and what the audience understands. Creating meaning is the privilege and responsibility of the product designer.

Products are the union of the narrative and objective; product designers shape narratives into objective interaction.

Attention is the fundamental demand of a product. Good product designers draw attention with care.

Products are bundles of purposes activated by affordances. Product designers form a hierarchy of purposes: primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on.

Product designers design with intent, creativity, play, focus, constraints, perseverance, understanding, foresight, practical empathy, insight, intuition, judgment, taste, curiosity, and a sense of what is good.

Product designers design with collaboration, communication, relationships, teamwork, negotiation, trade-offs, emotional intelligence, facilitation, giving, sacrifice, and humbly serving the interests of the team and organization.

Aspirations often outpace aptitude. Product designers live in the balance.