Designing for people and their agents
Your customers are starting to send agents in their place. It is a chance to rethink user-centred design from the ground up, and build products that are clearer for everyone who uses them, people and agents alike.
Four principles for designing now
They shape every screen in Stunt Double, and they hold for any product that people and agents both use.
- 01
Evidence over opinion
Base decisions on what users actually did: the screen, the step and their own words. Behaviour tells you more than how someone says they felt, and anyone on your team can check it.
- 02
Clarity with purpose
Give each screen one job, one primary action and one point of emphasis. Show the context people need, such as timestamps, steps and status, so they can decide and act.
- 03
Calm and quick
Help your customers get to what they need, when they need it. Keep the interface steady: motion only where it explains something, instant responses to the keyboard, and red only for real failures.
- 04
Accessible to people and agents
Label every control, support the keyboard and make state clear to screen readers. The same structure lets agents understand and use your product, so one piece of work serves both.
How customers reach your product is changing
Until recently, customers used software directly: they read the screen, clicked and typed. Now more of them hand the task to an agent that signs up, books and buys for them. The customer still has a goal, but they are no longer the one at the screen, and most teams cannot see how their agent gets on.
What this changes for design
What shifts for your team when people and agents use the same product.
- 01
Design for the intent, not the device
Behind every agent is a person with a goal, a budget and a deadline. Design for what they are trying to do, whether they or their agent is at the screen.
- 02
Clear interfaces serve both
Agents read labels, follow focus order and act on what the page says. Controls that say what they do, choices that are confirmed and costs shown up front help people and agents alike.
- 03
Design and code inform each other
Design files and codebases can now read each other, so designs are no longer handed over once. They move into code, come back for review and go round again.
- 04
Design systems are read by agents
Agents building screens use what your design system names and guess the rest. Clear names, tokens and mapped components decide what they ship.
- 05
Knowing is now the slow part
When a prototype takes an afternoon, the hard part is learning whether it works for the people and agents who will use it. So test every change, not only the final one.
- 06
Judgement stays with people
Tools carry design decisions faithfully. None of them knows whether a fourth onboarding step should exist. That call is still yours.
Design is your best differentiator
It’s easier than ever to build a competitor, but design can set you apart.
Visual communication
When features are easy to copy, how your product looks and explains itself is what customers remember. Clear, confident visual communication builds trust in seconds and makes your product recognisably yours.
Extended experiences
Your product is more than its interface. The onboarding email, the notification, the receipt, the support reply and the summary an agent reports back are all part of what customers buy. Design every one of them.
The service layer
Customers buy the whole service, not the screen: how you price, deliver, support and follow up. Design the business service behind the product, and it becomes the part a competitor cannot copy overnight.
Put your next design in front of an actor
Point an actor at a Figma prototype or a preview URL, and see every step it took.