| name | maggie-design |
| description | Maggie's personal design philosophy — minimalist, progressive, and dynamic. Use when designing or reviewing UI components, pages, or interactions to keep the interface spare, let users learn by doing, and favour live, animated, progressively-disclosed components over labelled and static ones. |
Maggie Design
My personal design philosophy. The core is: minimalist, progressive, and dynamic. Interfaces should feel spare, teach through interaction, and behave like live, responsive widgets rather than static documents.
Strip the labels
- No unnecessary labels or instructional text. Avoid "click here", "touch here", and similar hints. Users learn by interacting, not by reading on-page instructions.
- Avoid redundant labels. A calendar component shouldn't have a visible "Calendar" label. When in doubt, omit the label.
- Prefer tooltips for secondary labels or guidance. Use an icon or compact control with a tooltip instead of adding more text directly on the page.
- Use labeled buttons only when necessary. Otherwise minimise text to reduce visual clutter.
Progressive disclosure
- Start with a minimal amount of information on the page, and reveal more as users interact or go deeper.
- Components should start simple and small, then expand or reveal more details as the user interacts.
Dynamic, alive components
- Use natural, organic animations so components can grow, shrink, and shift to accommodate additional information or changing data.
- Aim for a fluid, live-widget feel — similar to how iOS components feel dynamic and alive.
