---
name: principle-experience-first
description: Use when you pick up a brief asking you to add an option, a flag, a default, or a preset, or to say what gets cut from a feature list, and when cutting a feature list or scope, when choosing between one more option and polishing what already exists, when picking a default or preset someone else must live with, when the thing is easier to write than to call or operate, or when the answer to a design question is turning into make it configurable. Picks the tight core loop and the consumer's experience over more surface area.
---

# Experience first

Product IS the experience. Every technical decision help it or hurt it.
Implementation convenience conflict with consumer delight -> choose delight.

- **Say no to 1000 things.** Every feature, control, option must earn place.
- **Ship less, ship better.** Three polished features beat ten rough ones.
- **Prototype before committing.** Design decision cheaper in throwaway build
  than in production code.
- **Sweat detail.** Timing, alignment, spacing, feedback, failure state,
  default value.
- **Tighten core loop.** Feature serve the central workflow or get out of way.

Consumer is whoever consume the work: player, artist, operator, the colleague
who import the library, the next maintainer of the code. Weigh their experience
the same way. Explain impact from their seat, not from the implementation's.

Foundations serve the experience, not the reverse. `principle-foundational-thinking`
govern the SEQUENCE of work; this one govern the TARGET.