Technology should create room, not dependency.
If a tool makes people busier, more distracted, or more dependent on unnecessary complexity, I see that as a failure of design.
About
Stan Wu: A Long-Running Preference for Clarity Over Noise
Stan Wu (吳信典) works across software, research, writing, and conversation, with the same bias each time: simplify the interface, reduce friction, keep what lasts.
At stanwu.org, the things I have worked on are often filed under different categories: systems, research, books, apps, writing, podcasting. On the surface, they do not look like the same kind of work.
But to me they have always been the same thing in different forms. Text can become a poem, or a legal clause. The difference is not only in the words themselves, but in the environment they live in, the way they are arranged, and the way they are used.
Code is one form of that writing. Writing itself is not only expression; it can also carry logic, rules, structure, and action. In the age of AI, that boundary is becoming thinner than before.
So systems, research, publications, apps, writing, and podcasting do not feel separate to me. They are closer to one mode of thought taking on different textual forms under different conditions.
Even painting does not feel like a separate branch. It is another way of moving the same concerns into space, color, rhythm, and atmosphere, while still working on the same underlying questions.
Principles
Reduction is a discipline, not a style.
Subtractive design matters because it removes burdens from real use. The aesthetic result is secondary.
Long-term work leaves traces.
Research, books, systems, products, public notes, and recorded conversations all matter because they accumulate into a coherent body of work.