- Visual over text: People think visually → workflows should be visual
- Tiles over timelines: Editing is a series of decisions → tiles express decisions
- Smart defaults: Most users shouldn’t configure 100 knobs
- Simple first, powerful later: Beginners should publish in 5 minutes, power users can go deeper
- Platform awareness: 9:16 is not 16:9 — formats matter
- Results over tools: Users care about outcomes, not software