Writing is a design tool

Before I design a screen, I write it. Not a spec — the screen itself, as prose. "You open the app. It says you're on track this month. One tap shows the thing that's off." If the paragraph reads clean, the flow usually is. If the paragraph needs a second sentence to explain the first, the screen will need a tooltip, and the tooltip means I've already lost.

Prose is a ruthless prototype

A mockup can hide a confused idea behind good typography — I know because I've done it. Prose can't. Writing "then the user chooses between the plan that's recommended and the plan that's popular" exposes the nonsense immediately: recommended by whom? popular with whom? Why are these different? The sentence collapses, and it takes the flow down with it, twenty minutes into the project instead of twenty days.

Interface copy is interface

The words on the screen aren't decoration on the design — on most screens they are the design. "We found you a new flight" is a different product than "Rebooking options available." Same feature, same data, different amount of panic absorbed on the user's behalf.

So my process now runs words-first: write the screen, read it aloud, fix the sentence, then draw the thing the sentence describes. The visual work goes faster and argues less. It turns out most design debates are actually writing debates wearing a trench coat.