Building Things That Delight

Why it attracts me

Formal systems are satisfying, but they can become heavy. Building something whose main job is to delight someone is a way to stay light. It also reminds me that the person on the other end is the point.

An example

The Name Lab side quest is a tiny tool with a personal hook. It starts with the most meaningful word a child knows, their own name, and lets them trace it while the letter guides slowly fade, until they can write it from memory. The page draws a small product lesson from it: the tracing itself is simple, but using the child’s own name turns an abstract letter exercise into something they already care about. The stated goal is to make the app unnecessary. I like that the delight and the learning come from the same small design choice.

What I think (and don't know)

Delight is not a lesser goal than usefulness. It may be a source of meaning in its own right (The Search for Meaning). There is also a risk of turning every playful project into something optimized and measured. I don’t know where the line is between improving a delightful thing and draining the delight out of it.

Where it connects

Using AI to Help Tell Stories and Stories We Invent Together are about stories made for shared joy. Designing How Software Feels is about how the feel of a tool carries its spirit, and Love Is Not Something to Maximize asks what matters in ways that cannot be optimized.

Questions I'm still exploring

• What is the smallest thing I could build that would make someone’s day better?
• How do I keep playful projects from turning into productivity projects?
• Is joy a good enough reason to build something, even if few people ever use it?