The Method
HTDD is a seven-stage methodology that establishes a traceable relationship between human understanding and technological implementation. Each stage emerges from the previous one, creating a clear lineage from lived experience to product decisions.
Founder Experience
The lived experience and observations of the founder or founding team.
Human Truth
A distilled understanding of how people genuinely think, feel, or behave in relation to the problem.
Product Principle
A strategic principle about what the product should be or do, grounded in human truth.
Experience Principle
A principle defining the kind of experience we want to create for the user.
Interaction Principle
A principle governing how the user interacts with the product or feature.
Interface
The specific UI elements and layout that embody the interaction principle.
Technology
The implementation, infrastructure, and technical decisions that enable the interface.
Why This Structure
Traceability
Every design decision can be traced back to the human truth that inspired it. This traceability creates confidence in your decisions and accountability to your users.
Shared Understanding
Teams align around human truths rather than debating surface-level features. This shared foundation eliminates disputes rooted in differing assumptions about user needs.
Resilience Against Trends
By grounding decisions in human needs rather than technology trends, your product remains relevant and purposeful even as platforms and tools change.
Continuous Improvement
When designs don't work, you can trace the problem back to its source—whether it's a misunderstanding of human needs, a faulty principle, or poor execution—and fix it effectively.
Ready to Apply HTDD
The Starter Kit provides practical guidance for understanding your users and applying HTDD principles to your own work.
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