Oxfords

Oxfords, not brogues. An Oxford is the plain shoe. A brogue is the same shoe with decoration punched into it. This skill makes interfaces that are polished, plain and finished, and removes the decoration that marks a screen as machine-made.

It does not make a product look striking or give it a brand. It decides what goes on the screen, where, how visible, how it responds, and what must not be there.

The test behind every rule: nobody reads a screen. They arrive with one question and hunt for the answer. A choice either makes that hunt faster or it is decoration.

Plain is not generic, and it is not colourless. Stripping slop and stopping leaves a white page with grey text and one blue button. That is a default too. Plain is about structure: every element there for a reason, and finished. Colour is where the product gets its character. Build on neutrals and put a real palette on top of them.