Empathy, focus, impute
One focused chapter from the Thorbis interface research. 4 rules. Read the research index for every chapter and focused study.
Empathy, focus, impute
- Empathy. “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.” Ours are specific: a dispatcher at 7 a.m., a technician in a crawlspace, an owner closing the books. If a surface does not serve one of those people, it is not Thorbis. Do not design for a generic “user.”
- Focus. “In order to do a good job of those things we decide to do we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.” This is Karri’s reduce-scope rule, written in 1977. One view done exceptionally well beats a half-finished second one. Cut the extra module, the extra accent, the extra nav item.
- Impute. “People DO judge a book by its cover.” We may have the best dispatch board in the trades; if we present it slipshod, it will be taken as slipshod. If we present it with the same care we put in the workbench, we impute that care. This is why Showcase exists, and why the workbench stays quiet, not sloppy. Markkula, January 3, 1977.
- The cover and the book get the same care. Impute is not decoration on a weak product. The sheet in the ad is the sheet we ship. A cinematic void around a fake UI is a lie. A great board in a three-card marketing grid is a failure of impute. Both sides have to be true.
I built this for the dispatcher at 7 a.m., the tech in a crawlspace, and the owner closing the books. Quiet chrome. Precise work. I’m still learning. These are the notes.
Applied bookmark research
Reviewed 2026-09-06. These examples reinforce the existing owners; they do not introduce another visual style or claim the product behavior is implemented. Read the 26-source review and access limits.
Make the task easier, not the screen busier
A feature can look complete while the dispatcher still has to reconstruct context or wait for unrelated content.
Start from one person, interruption, and completed task. Keep the current job and its next action usable while optional evidence arrives. Treat the real constraint as part of the brief, not something polished away afterward.
Thorbis example. For assigning a tech, show the job, relevant availability, and the consequence of the assignment. Do not make the dispatcher traverse a marketing-style sequence or a new shell to finish a routine task.
Verify. Walk through the task with representative long and missing records. Check that the essential action remains understandable when optional content is slow or unavailable. Record the result rather than claiming a performance improvement without measurement.
Do not import. No additional shell, feature hero, framework migration, or new dependency. Keep the approved surface role.
Open the product skill · Evidence: Design Engineer Principles; How we think about design; Component Architecture for React Server Components
Preserve the place as the collection grows
Large customer, property, and inspiration collections become expensive to navigate when every inspection loses the current place.
Treat filters, selected records, scroll, and Back behavior as part of the task. Loading a child or optional panel should not reset the whole collection. A saved reference includes enough context to be useful when revisited.
Thorbis example. Open a property from a filtered customer list and return to the same filter and position. On the inspiration wall, reserve the media footprint and retain source credit even when the preview is unavailable.
Verify. Try refresh, Back and Forward, a direct record link, an empty result, a failed preview, and a long collection. Check that late data does not overwrite a draft or move the action under the pointer.
Do not import. No unbounded eager media, private information in shareable URLs, or a local-only storage promise borrowed from Copper.
Open the ecosystem skill · Evidence: 7 Principles of Rich Web Applications; Component Architecture for React Server Components; Philosophy; Copper