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We went to a preschool.

Not a lab. Not a usability suite. A classroom with paint, paper, and children who had no interest in using anything “correctly.”

We weren’t testing an interface. We were trying to understand how people move through color before constraint is introduced.

This work came from a push to rethink how markup tools were presented in Skitch. Rather than iterate on existing UI patterns, I recommended we step outside the product entirely. The idea was met with skepticism by the team, but Phil Libin supported it directly.

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Children don’t select colors.

They move through them.

There is no pause to decide. No scanning of options. No commitment to a single choice. Color is continuous, not discrete. It blends, overlaps, interrupts itself. A hand becomes the tool. The surface becomes the palette.

What we saw wasn’t randomness. It was exploration without friction.

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Most digital palettes assume the opposite.

They assume selection:

• pick a color
• confirm the choice
• apply it

A palette becomes a menu. A decision point. A moment of interruption.

What we were watching suggested something else.

That observation directly informed how we approached palettes in Skitch, shifting away from rigid selection toward more fluid, exploratory interaction patterns.

The palette wasn’t a list. It was a space.

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That shifted the question.

Not:

“How do we help users choose a color?”

But:

“What would it mean to let users move through color?”

That distinction matters.

Choice is discrete. Movement is continuous. One creates decisions. The other creates flow.

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The implication wasn’t to literally recreate fingerpainting in an interface.

It was to rethink where constraint belongs.

Constraint too early forces decisions users aren’t ready to make. Constraint too late creates chaos. The work is in placing it where exploration has already done its job.

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This shows up in my work now in a simple way:

I don’t assume users want to decide.

I assume they want to explore first, and decide later.

Design changes when you make that shift.

Interfaces stop asking for answers too early. Systems stop interrupting behavior that hasn’t finished forming. The surface becomes something you move through, not something you operate.

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We didn’t go there to redesign a palette.

We went there to understand what people do before design asks them to decide.

That decision reshaped how we approached the product. It’s still how I approach systems now: observe behavior first, then decide where constraint belongs.