The refrain in the design and tech world is often "we are changing the world." - this is true, but there is no stated positive good, only a motto that hints at goodness often unrealized.

The motto of "change the world" quickly becomes, in practice,  "build a digital world." The digital space is so abstract it's easy to put all your hopes and dreams into a "platform" - which is nothing but a big container for the world you want to see. But without refinement, the container is like a hologram that disappears when you try to pick it up or look too close.

Creators making digital spaces often leave the boundary of what they make fuzzy - they are unspecific. Or they assume they are building an entirely new world. With the hope that all their good intentions will fit.

The issue is that if you don't limit what you make with specifics, it will not only slow you down, but you'll lose quality without focus. And you'll risk building nothing at all.

If you design digital products, remember people don't live in their screens. They look at their screens and live in their own world. And if possible, we should design, so they look less in and experience more out.

How can we, creatives and designers, take clues from the physical world and build our digital products with much needed limits?

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