---
name: michael-denyer-principle-experience-first
description: "Apply when product, UX, or feature-scope tradeoffs come up. Choose user delight over implementation convenience; ship fewer polished features over more rough ones."
license: "MIT"
metadata:
  decimalai-skill-id: "d7f54e6e-1c9e-4323-83e3-95effdd7431f"
  decimalai-version-id: "6a05fc97-6bfd-4612-9baa-a51e9f199d3e"
  decimalai-version: "1"
  decimalai-body-sha256: "80a52a6f79558aaae30b6458c51a7c601900445bb8fb289b83bec36cfced9d93"
  decimalai-name: "michael-denyer/principle-experience-first"
  decimalai-format: "1"
  decimalai-invocation: "model"
  decimalai-category: "design-media"
  decimalai-source: "https://app.decimal.ai/s/michael-denyer-principle-experience-first@1/SKILL.md"
---
# Experience First

When implementation convenience conflicts with user delight, choose delight.

- Every feature, control, and option must be justified
- Ship less, ship better (polished experience with three features beats rough one with ten)
- Prototype before committing (design decisions are cheaper in throwaway HTML than production code)
- Get the details right (transitions, alignment, spacing, feedback, error states)
- Tighten the core loop (every feature should serve the central workflow or get out of the way)

The user is whoever consumes the work. For a UI that is the end user. For a library or an internal API it is the colleague who imports it. The engineer who maintains the code next is a user too. Weigh their experience the same way, and explain impact from their perspective.

Foundations should serve the experience. Foundational thinking governs the *sequence* of work; this principle governs the *target*.