Glass Box Project

Glass Box

Make Design Decisions Visible.

Every design is shaped by decisions.

Some are visible in the final work. Many are not.

A finished design shows us what was made. But behind it are questions, explorations, choices, changes of direction, and reasons that shaped the outcome.

Glass Box makes those decisions easier to see.

Not to reveal a single right way to design.
Not to tell designers what they should have done.

Simply to look a little closer at what happens along the way.

Look beyond the final work.

When we look at a design, we often see the outcome first.

A beautiful interface.
A clever product.
A thoughtful service.
A polished identity.

But what led there?

What was the designer trying to understand?
What informed the direction?
What other possibilities were considered?
Why this choice?
What changed along the way?

These decisions are part of the design too.

And when we can see them, there is more to learn from the work.

This is Glass Box

Glass Box opens up the decisions behind design.

We collect, explore, and share the thinking and choices that shape design work, making them easier to notice, question, discuss, and learn from.

Because sometimes the most interesting part of a design isn’t what we see.

It’s why it became that way.

Design is a series of decisions.

Every project brings decisions.

Some are small.

Some change the direction of the work.

Some are made with confidence.

Others emerge through uncertainty, experimentation, and reflection.

There isn’t always one right answer.

What matters is being able to understand the decisions we make, question them, and learn from what happens next.

That’s the practice Glass Box wants to make more visible.

DECIDE

Six lenses for looking at design decisions.

D → Discover

What are we trying to understand?

E → Evidence

What informs what we believe?

C → Clarify

What are we actually deciding?

I → Imagine

What possibilities do we have?

D → Develop

Why this direction?

E → Evaluate

What did we learn?

DECIDE isn’t a formula for designing.

It’s a way to look more closely at the decisions within design.

Learn to see your own decisions differently.

Glass Box is for people who want to look beyond the finished work.

For design students learning to understand their practice.

For emerging designers finding their own way of working.

For anyone curious about what happens between an idea and the thing that eventually gets made.

By seeing how decisions are made by others, we become better at noticing our own.

Notice. Question. Decide. Reflect.

And, over time, make better decisions of our own.

Open the box.

Design has always involved more than what ends up on the screen, on the page, or in the final product.

There are decisions worth seeing.

Let’s make them visible.