Once the product's task is known, design the interface first; then implement to the interface design.

An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.

When you have to choose among methods, your locus of attention is drawn from the task and temporarily becomes the decision itself.

As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.

An unlimited-length file name is a file. The content of a file is its own best name.

I am confident that we can do better than GUIs because the basic problem with them (and with the Linux and Unix interfaces) is that they ask a human being to do things that we know experimentally humans cannot do well. The question I asked myself is, given everything we know about how the human mind works, could we design a computer and computer software so that we can work with the least confusion and greatest efficiency?

A computer shall not harm your work or, through inaction, allow your work to come to harm.