Yongkee
Hong

I started in design, and I still begin every product at the screen, with what a person sees there and how it feels to read. These days I build with AI agents, which has changed where my time goes more than what I care about. I decide what the product should do, where its limits are and what words it uses, and the agents write the code while I check the result on a real screen until it works the way I meant.

I would rather show a working prototype than write a long specification, since people respond to something they can touch far more honestly than to a document. Most of my effort goes into taking things away, whether that is an option nobody needs, a sentence that says the same thing twice or an icon that is only there for decoration. I keep a dated record of each decision and the reason behind it, including the ones I later reverse, and I only put numbers on a screen when they are real.

I also spend time with the people I am building for, because what they tell me in person tends to correct what I assumed on my own. When a prototype is ready, I hand it to engineers along with the reasoning, so that what gets built is what was intended.