The hill
Every product climbs the same hill.
Products differ. The ground they cross does not: you climb with an idea and come back down with something to hand over.
Up and down
One side is your vision. The other side is your users, with the thing you built.
Point at a part of the hill.
Going up — your vision
Only your vision up here — the brand you think it should have, the experience you think people want, the interface you think will carry it. Nobody has used any of it yet, so nothing can argue back.
The summit — the turn
Where it gets decided. The shape is settled — concrete enough to build from, bounded enough to finish — and what you carry down is that decision, not a longer list of options.
Coming down — your users
Carrying it down to the people it was made for. Every state you did not draw, someone using it in a hurry, a market that either hears the story or does not. Nothing new is being decided — you are finding out whether what you decided was right.
Most products are on both sides at once — one part still an idea, another already in someone’s hands.
The way up
Climbing, you cross three kinds of ground in order — what it is for, then how it works, then what it looks like. Each one is built on the one below it.
Point at a part of the hill.
Brand — climbing
Who it’s for, who you are, and where you sit against everyone else. Every layer above inherits the answer, which is what makes guessing it cheap now and expensive later.
UX — climbing
What the experience should be, proved with journeys and prototypes. The point is finding out whether it works while it is still cheap to be wrong about.
UI — climbing
Hero screens and exploration — where brand and experience first have to agree. A direction gets committed to here, and the ones not taken get written down rather than quietly lost.
The way down
Coming down you cross the same three, in reverse — and this time someone is using what you built.
Point at a part of the hill.
UI — descending
The real components: variations, states, the set the build actually uses. One hero screen is a claim; a system that still holds at the twentieth screen is the proof.
UX — descending
Beta and early testers on the real thing, rather than a prototype. This is where the assumptions the way up rested on either survive contact or get replaced.
Brand — descending
The website, the launch, the story — the product meeting its market. The test is whether the story told at the base still describes the thing that actually got built.
The whole walk
Six stretches: the three layers on the way up, then the same three coming down. Point at a layer on either side of the turn.
Point at a part of the hill.
Brand — climbing
Who it’s for, who you are, and where you sit against everyone else. Every layer above inherits the answer, which is what makes guessing it cheap now and expensive later.
UX — climbing
What the experience should be, proved with journeys and prototypes. The point is finding out whether it works while it is still cheap to be wrong about.
UI — climbing
Hero screens and exploration — where brand and experience first have to agree. A direction gets committed to here, and the ones not taken get written down rather than quietly lost.
The summit — the turn
Where it gets decided. The shape is settled — concrete enough to build from, bounded enough to finish — and what you carry down is that decision, not a longer list of options.
UI — descending
The real components: variations, states, the set the build actually uses. One hero screen is a claim; a system that still holds at the twentieth screen is the proof.
UX — descending
Beta and early testers on the real thing, rather than a prototype. This is where the assumptions the way up rested on either survive contact or get replaced.
Brand — descending
The website, the launch, the story — the product meeting its market. The test is whether the story told at the base still describes the thing that actually got built.
It is a map, not a plan. It says where the ground is and what is still unclimbed above you — not what to buy, and not in what order to buy it.
The three terrains
Three kinds of ground, stacked. You cross all three on the way up and all three on the way back down.
Point at a part of the hill.
UI
Built on both. The surface someone actually touches — screens, states, components. It can only be as right as the two layers holding it up.
UX
Built on the brand. The structure: what the product does, in what order, and what it asks of someone. Move what it is for and the flows above it move with it.
Brand
The foundation. What the product is for and who it is for — every layer above inherits the answer, which is why it is the hardest one to change later.
What you leave with
- Brand artifacts
- Identity, tokens, and the rules that govern them — voice written as instructions something can follow, with the explicit do and don’t.
- Prototypes
- Something to test against, build from, or reject on purpose — with what it was testing and what got ruled out written down.
- Components
- The set your app gets assembled from. Named, variant-complete, states legible, ready to build against without me in the room.
The artifacts are what you build from. The decision behind them is why they’re the right ones, and the written record is the proof they weren’t arbitrary — including the directions we rejected, so nobody relitigates a settled question six months from now.