Design that explains itself

Good design is the kind you do not notice. A handle that invites pulling gets pulled. A button that looks pressable gets pressed. Nobody writes a manual for these, because the thing already tells you what to do.

The tell for bad design is the sign. When a door needs a “PUSH” label, the label is quietly admitting that the door failed. The same goes for software: every tooltip, every help page, and every “are you sure?” is a small confession that the design could have said it better.

The useful habit is to blame the thing, not the person. If someone gets lost, the question is not “why didn’t they read it?” but “what did we make it look like?” That one change of question tends to make everything simpler.

It applies to writing, too. If a sentence needs a footnote to be understood, rewrite the sentence.