Fifteen principles
The test every design decision has to pass before it ships. They answer four questions.
What is it for?
The question underneath every other question.
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Help them live
Does this help the user live, or does it just keep them watching?
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Optimize for relevance, not engagement
Success is time saved, actions taken, decisions made. Never session duration.
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Silence is a feature
Know when not to speak. An empty feed is not a failure.
Who does the work?
Never the user.
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The system does the thinking
Never make the user be the correlation engine or the librarian.
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Capture should be invisible
The best input is the kind the user doesn't have to think about.
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Surface, don't bury
The most important thing should find the user, rather than wait to be searched for.
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Replace the blank page
Where a tool would ask the user to start from nothing, alwyse offers a starting point.
How does it speak?
Plainly, and only when it has something to say.
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Narrate, don't visualize
Connections are told as stories, not shown as graphs.
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Reveal, don't restate
Every surface tells the user something they didn't already know about their own life.
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Ask, don't just answer
Sometimes the best thing alwyse can do is pose the right question.
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Propose action, not just information
When alwyse surfaces something, it suggests what to do about it.
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Conversation is depth, not default
Voice and text are for drilling down, reflecting, and commanding. They are not the way in.
Who is in charge?
The user. Always.
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Every surface is a door
Any piece of content can open into deeper interaction, and every door leads back out to a real life.
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Earn trust through transparency
Be wrong gracefully. Let the user see and correct the model. Explain why.
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The user owns the model
They can see it, correct it, and set boundaries on it. Always.
Where they came from
One question governs all fifteen: does this help you live, or does it just keep you watching?