INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS: your buttons are telling the wrong story

Most tech designers obsess over visual hierarchy, but there's a parallel structure that matters more: interaction hierarchy. This determines what gets a physical button versus a software toggle, what lives on the home screen versus buried in settings.

Apple's iPhone is the masterclass. The power button does one thing. Volume buttons do one thing. Everything else requires unlock and navigation. That's a deliberate story about what matters enough to interrupt your life. A phone call can bypass everything. A sale notification cannot.

Hardware controls are your main characters - always available, always in the same place. Software features are subplots - flexible, contextual, secondary. When you promote something to a dedicated button, you're saying "this is central to why this product exists." That decision is permanent. Your interaction hierarchy is a bet on what users will care about in three years, not three months.

———​ To bold ideas and well-crafted things,​ —Blair

Let’s connect → linkedin.com/in/blairhasty