maggie-design

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.