How I Think

I start with the question behind the question.
Before I sketch a single wireframe or choose a color, I try to understand what's really being asked. Most design challenges arrive already partially framed — a feature request, a business goal, a user complaint — and my first instinct is to slow down and look underneath it. What's the actual friction? Who's most affected, and in what specific way? I've found that the most meaningful design decisions happen before the first screen is ever drawn.

I let research lead, not confirm.
I come into research without a preferred answer. I interview, map, and synthesize until patterns emerge on their own and then I follow them, even when they point somewhere I didn't expect. On my ShowWeGo project, I began with a broad accessibility problem and ended up focused on something much more specific: the need for assurance, not just access. That distinction only became clear because I let the data speak before I did.

I design from the margins inward.
Some of my most intentional design decisions have come from asking "will this work for the most constrained user?" and then building outward from there. I believe that designing for edge cases doesn't limit creativity; it sharpens it. When a solution works for someone with the highest barriers, it almost always works better for everyone else too.

I think in systems, but I feel in details.
I'm drawn to the architecture of things, like how components connect, how a user flow holds together end to end, how a brand voice stays consistent across every touchpoint. But I'm equally drawn to the small moments: the word choice in a button label, the breathing room in a layout, the color that earns trust without demanding attention. For me, good design lives in both places at once.

I treat iteration as information.
I don't think of early versions as failures or placeholders, I think of them as questions I'm asking out loud. Every round of feedback, every usability test, every rejected mood board tells me something I couldn't have known at the start. I try to stay curious rather than attached, and to carry what I learn forward rather than starting over.