Design: intent & form

Design is intent, and intent is form and form is the relationship between technology and the user.

Before I start buddy.me is not a dating app neither is it a clone of some social feed. Like many tools that claim to solve a pain point, buddy.me might echo familiar patterns — but its use case breaks the mold.

There was a phrase many years ago that nicknames people who can't mingle. I was among these people, not that I didn't care about saying hello or shaking hands, the relationships I had felt flat. No sense of direction and marrying this was the heat. Sub-sahara, well, you get it. And for a long time this was my problem, how do I form meaningful connections with other people? What do they seek in others — like Quentin Tarantino casting the right actor for a scene? (If you haven’t watched Pulp Fiction, you should). Even the thought of this posed many questions, my favourite was this: how does Mrs Johnson form a genuine connection with Mrs B?

Each connection is bidirectional. It's not just “I follow you,” but rather, “we see and support each other.” You can think of it like a SYN / SYN-ACK / ACK in networking: One user reaches out (SYN), the other acknowledges with interest (SYN-ACK), and the initial user affirms the connection (ACK). This mutual handshake establishes a social contract — an agreement that “we’re in this together,” whether it’s a habit, goal, or challenge. It sets the tone for shared accountability rather than passive observation.

That leads us to the deeper question: Why? Why should Mrs B accept the handshake? And even if she does — how, where, and for what?

Let's break this down:

So, why should Mrs B shake Mrs Johnson’s hand?

Because connection precedes accountability. Mrs B sees something in Mrs Johnson — maybe shared goals, empathy, or experience. Reaching out isn’t just social; it’s intentional. It says: “I believe we can walk this path better together.”

How should the handshake happen?

With clarity and consent. No random pokes. It starts with a signal of intent — a request, a shared roadmap, or a gesture that respects both parties’ time and bandwidth. This makes the connection mutual, meaningful, and manageable.

Where should this happen?

Inside contexts that matter — habit groups, challenges, or moments where support is natural. Not just anywhere, but at the intersection of shared intent and aligned timing. The handshake becomes frictionless when it’s embedded within purposeful spaces in the app.

And what’s the purpose?

To build trust and traction. It’s not just about knowing someone exists — it’s about progress with presence. A Buddy connection is a silent pact:

“I’ll check in. You’ll show up. We’ll both grow.”

Intent

This makes the resolution direct and compact: “Design is intent. Intent is form. Form is the relationship between technology and the user.” Intent isn’t surface polish — it’s the architecture of thought. Not just shape, but the reason the shape exists. And form is the dialogue between technology and the human it serves. If design as i've defined is the architecture of experience, then it must begin with purpose, branches into constraints, and ends where delight meets function. Therefore, a good design doesn't impress. It understands. It listens before it speaks — this is the core of buddy.me. It shapes affordances, not interfaces.

Intent is the reason behind the design. And for buddy.me, it answers the following:

• why does this exist?
• what is it trying to help the user do?
• what outcome is the product designer aiming for?

On the screen, the button affords an action — “Click Me.” That’s our signal. The user issues it with implicit intent. Now, we could treat that signal as a trigger to gather context — profile → insights → roadmap — but that’s not what Buddy.me is about.

So we skip the preamble: Click Me → Roadmap. Because the promise is already present. The system doesn't need a warm-up act. Buddy.me is not capturing data. It's starting a journey.

The designer is not merely an artist — they are a translator. Between machine and need. Between ambition and the messy truth of everyday behavior. Between complexity... and clarity.

So buddy.me wants to understand this problem of connection and employ the etiquette, technique of design to solve it. The goal although grandiose is simple — how do we form genuine connections in this buzz built world and why the hell should you care?

The intent here is like a compass. Every element of the product — from colours, buttons, APIs, backend and infra — should follow the intent. Without it design becomes decorations.

Example: A health app's intent might be — 'Empower rural users to access verified medical info quickly.' The intent should shape everything, from load time to font size to server locality.

Buddy.me's intent then becomes: connecting people with a genuine like-minded accountability partners. So if you are an introvert who likes gaming or wants to start working out, you get paired on the roadmap with someone that shares the same goal as you.

Form

But what does form mean here? Well, form is how the intent take shape — visibly, functionally, experimentally.

form is:

• the interface (what users see) — signifiers
• the interaction (what users do) — affordance
• the response (what users get back) — feedback

In essence the form must make the intent obvious.

Imaging you are designing a door. Your intent is to help people walk through it. If it opens with a gentle push, that's the form that matches the intent. But if you make it pull with no handle, you've broken the relationship. That's bad design.

In a world of noise, buddy.me wants to be the nudge. Not the loudest voice, but the clearest signal.