philosophy

living. rewritten whenever it can be said more simply.

what it is about

most of what we know does not fit in one list. a recipe is a dinner, a season, a set of ingredients, a memory of who cooked it. a planet is rocky, has a colour, has moons, sits at a distance. folders make us choose one of these as the master and hide the rest. tags keep them all, but never show two at once.

cube design starts from the other end. a thing is a piece, and a piece sits on several dimensions at once. a collection of pieces is a cube. you never see the whole cube; you look at it through one, two or three dimensions at a time, and turning it shows the same pieces in a new order. that new order is often where understanding happens.

how it is found

dimensions are not handed down. they are noticed.

1. put two things side by side and ask what is the same about them. that sameness is a dimension, even before it has a name. a colour is enough to start.
2. then ask how the same two things differ. the differences are the options of that dimension.
3. ask why both appeared here. the answer is often another dimension.

when something does not make sense, we do not force it into the words we have. we try other words, compare again, and see what is the same and what differs. a thing we do not understand yet is a piece we have not opened yet.

no base case

look closely at any piece and it opens as a cube of its own. step back from any cube and it is a piece of something larger. there is no smallest unit and no top. the floor is wherever attention stops, for now.

this is why the same design fits apps (mosaic), knowledge (cubes) and what is in the heart (anlat). the subject was never the point. the way of looking was.

a thing and a way of looking

a cube is both a thing and a way of looking. (selim, 2026-10-29; a study, not settled.)

as a thing it stays put. a piece with its colours on its faces is just there: you can hold it, keep it, add to it, but not do much with it. as a way of looking it moves. once there are enough pieces and enough ways they are the same, you can turn it, step into it and step back out, and the same pieces show themselves in a new order.

the two meet in every cube and pull apart in some places: navigation is all looking, while a piece is a thing. where they pull apart is being studied in the open questions (#10).

a door and a key

cube design is both a door and a key. (selim, 2026-10-29; a study, not settled.)

sometimes it is a door: a shape the work cannot get past, a question that will not fit. then the same thing turns into the key that opens it. the cube problem was a door in every app it kept appearing in, until it became the way of looking that opens them.

it may be the same pair as the thing and the way of looking, felt from inside: held still, the cube is a door; turned, it is a key. studied in the open questions (#11).

cube design is a cube too

cube design is approached with its own principles. its files, decisions, open questions, drawings and this text are pieces. they sit on dimensions (what part of the design it is, how settled, who reads it first), and new dimensions are noticed as they grow. a question that comes up is not a bug to fix; it is a piece to place. is it a piece of an existing cube, a cube of its own, or a new axis? whatever we learn about cubes, we use to understand cube design, which teaches us more about cubes.

so nothing found is thrown away. findings are collected, placed, and settled one at a time. versions are how the cube looked on a given day; the website lets anyone turn back to an earlier one.

understand once

every domain names the same few things differently: a notion database has rows, columns and options; a drawing has X, Y and Z; this design has pieces, dimensions and options. put them side by side, ask what is the same, and the same thing appears under all its names. understand it once, and that understanding carries into every new domain; the differences then show at once, and so does the sameness.

confidence earned in one domain can be carried into another. that is why cube design is a design and an understanding at the same time. when we do not have a name for what is the same, we keep it as a variable with a short description and let the name come later, after more examples. the words themselves are a cube: words across domains.

language is a piece too

the words an app speaks are not a coat of paint over the design. language is not innocent: the way a line invites, explains or stays quiet carries what the design believes, honestly or not. so in cube design the language is designed as carefully as the code, and apart from it. it is taken out of the code and becomes a piece of its own, to zoom into: every line, and every wording of a line, side by side. a button can be said in several ways, as a problem can be solved in several ways; we keep the ways, compare them, use one and change it when a better one comes. (selim, 2026-10-30; principle 23.)

walking the cube together

an app that follows cube design does not hand a person a finished cube, and it does not leave them alone with an empty one. the app and the person walk the cube together: they look at it together, and they build it together. each may see it a different way (the app notices a sameness the person had not named; the person gives a value the app could never have offered), and each influences the other. it is a collaboration, not a service: the app making connections is the app showing the person the cube, a few steps at a time, while the person shows the app where it goes. (selim, 2026-10-30, on anlat's help in finding a moment: "we are showing them the cube. we are walking together.")

principles serve, they do not rule

cube design is stretched on purpose, to see where it falls apart. a grouping can follow every principle and still make the app harder to use, and then the use wins: the principles are a way of looking, not a rulebook to follow blindly. when a reading of the rules makes something harder, read the rules again from the side of whoever uses the app; often the cube is there too, seen another way. whoever uses it may be on both sides at once: the people an app is made for, and its makers, who use it too. (selim, 2026-10-30, after a proposal for anlat's main screen moved pieces one level deeper to satisfy the principles: "we may fall into the trap of following a principle blindly… we need some flexibility.")

this section was first called "principles serve the person". the words were off (violation 5 in 12-violations.md): "the person" set the one using the app apart from the one making it, when they are often the same. a word for whoever stands on both sides is not found yet (open question 13, findings).

where it can be applied

anywhere things belong to several groupings at once and no single hierarchy feels right:

• personal tools: notes, recipes, training, money, todos: anything that ends up in folders that never quite fit.
• knowledge: a library of public cubes (planets, elements, countries) that you grow your own cube from.
• inner life: stories, moods and the patterns between them, found by the person rather than imposed.
• thinking and design: conflicts, decisions, requirements, and design systems like this one.

how it can be applied

• start with a few pieces. do not design the dimensions first.
• look at two pieces and notice what is the same. give it a colour; name it later.
• leave empty cells visible. unknown is information about where attention has been.
• let any piece open. do not decide in advance how deep things go.
• show at most three dimensions at once. let people turn the cube rather than read a table.
• Keep the words the same everywhere, and write down why each decision was made.

what it is not

not a database with a nicer face, not a score, not a test. the cube was always solved: nothing is wrong or missing, only the way of seeing changes.