Disciple · Chapter 07
The Console had dozens of pages designed in isolation. I sketched and validated a small set of interaction patterns that could apply universally.
The scene
Michael Harrower
Head of Product Design · Disciple
With the Console's new information architecture in place, the structure was sound. But the pages themselves were still a patchwork — each one designed independently, each one slightly different from the last.
The problem wasn't any individual screen. It was the absence of a shared grammar. Every new feature required reinventing the same decisions.
The problem
Tables, filters, detail panels, publish flows — each had been solved differently in every section of the Console. Designers were spending time re-solving solved problems, and engineers were building slightly different versions of the same components. Consistency was a manual checklist item, not a structural property.
5
Core interaction patterns defined
∞
Screens that inherited the grammar
The work
I sketched and validated a small set of interaction patterns that could apply universally across the Console.
Phase 01
With the structure settled, I turned to the building blocks. The Console had dozens of pages that had each been designed in isolation, creating a product that felt different in every section. I sketched and validated a small set of interaction patterns that could apply universally: tables where clicking a row opens a slide-out detail panel instead of navigating away, filter chips for quick list refinement without a separate search page, consistent publish and save flows with snackbar confirmation feedback, and card views for dense data that needed scanning rather than scrolling. The goal wasn't to rebuild every screen. It was to give every screen the same grammar.
The outcome
5
Interaction patterns documented
∞
Screens using the same grammar
Defining patterns rather than redesigning screens meant every future feature had a head start. Systematic thinking scaled; bespoke thinking didn't.
What I learned
Patterns beat perfection.
Trying to redesign every screen would have taken a year. Defining five interaction patterns that applied everywhere took two weeks and gave every future screen a head start.
Next chapter
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