- No axis is the master. A piece belongs to several groupings at once.
- The cube is the viewfinder, not the data. One look shows at most three dimensions.
- Sameness first. Two alike pieces make a dimension; the same two differing make its options.
- Colour before vocabulary. A dimension may exist before it has a name; draw it as colour alone.
- No base case. Any piece can open as a cube.
- Zoom is a change of distance, not of kind. Going into a piece and into an app is the same move.
- Empty is the point. Unknown cells are pale or dashed, never gaps or errors. The ragged edge maps where attention has been.
- The cube was always solved. Nothing is wrong, scrambled or missing; only the way of seeing changes. No scores, streaks or red.
- Offer, never command. Invitations, not instructions. Discovery shows; it never concludes.
- One vocabulary. A word means the same on every screen and in the code.
- One name close up, many from afar. Singular inside a piece, plural on the cube.
- The reordering is the product. Seeing the same pieces regroup is the value.
- Cube Design is a cube too. It is grown with its own principles; what it learns about cubes it uses on itself.
Next: a do / don't drawing for each.