← Field notes
№02·Tools

What stays human.

Three decisions that don't get delegated to the model. The shape of a site, the tone, and the answer to: is this any good?

The model is good at a lot of the work. It is not yet good at the three decisions that matter most: the shape of a site, the tone of a brand, and the final read on whether something is any good. Those stay with us.

Shape is the structure of the argument the site is making. What does the visitor learn first? What follows? What's missing on purpose? A model can populate a structure brilliantly. It cannot tell you which structure is right for a specific business. That call is ours.

Tone is the texture of the language — the rhythm, the restraint, the deliberate choice to underwrite or overwrite. Tone is felt before it's read. A model can match a tone you've given it. It cannot find the right tone for a brand that doesn't yet have one.

The third decision is the simplest and the most important: is this any good? Every artifact gets a yes or no from a human who has shipped enough work to know. The model has no opinion on that question. We do.

Next note · №01 · Studio

Opening the studio.

Read next

Field notes

Get the next one when it ships.

Email-only. Roughly one a month. Unsubscribe any time.

Subscribe