Chapter 10 - The Building Better Checklist
The Veteran in a New Field by Winslow Homer
“Men who are capable of real action first make their plans and then go forward without hesitation while their enemies have still not made up their minds.”
Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War
Our last chapter was the culmination of the Philosophy of Building Better. The Builder’s Oath is an end of the project, but it isn’t the end of the project.
Today, we will talk about how to take the philosophy and transform it into action. This is a deep and wide ranging topic that I intend to continue to delve into, but the starting point we will explore today is the simplest way I know how to take ideas and operationalize them.
A checklist.
Checklists have tremendous power for providing structure in unstructured spaces all at a relatively low cost of time and effort. They are used in situations where the stakes are high such as medical settings and by pilots, and have been shown to tangibly improve outcomes. Another benefit of checklists is that they can be optimized, customized, and otherwise maintained as a living part of each process. These characteristics make checklists an ideal tool in the better builder’s toolkit.
While there will be no one-size fits all checklist that covers every act of building, what I propose is a checklist that covers the Philosophy of Building Better itself. When utilized, this checklist won’t tell you how to build or what pattern is best for a given situation, but it will help ensure that you are purposefully thinking through the building process and immersing yourself in the context necessary to build the best pattern for a given situation.
The checklist I will share today is the most barebones of guardrails to assist you in your building efforts. It is just the beginning of a pattern language that I hope will grow to guide many acts of building better. My expectation is that I will build on this checklist in the future as I further refine the Philosophy of Building Better, but I also encourage every builder to use this framework as a starting point and customize it to suit the specifics of their building context.
Without further ado, the Building Better Checklist. A better builder will answer “Yes” to all of the following questions.
Have I admitted that I am a builder and I have a responsibility to build to the best of my ability?
Explanation: The first question reminds us that being a builder is more of a mindset than a job description. It centers us on the intentionality required to build well and is an acknowledgement that we have a responsibility towards both the things we build and the people who are impacted by them. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 1 - Building is the Pursuit of our Lives.
Real-World Example: The most important aspect to keep in mind is that YOU are a builder. A friend of mine, a Detective, once asked if the Philosophy of Building Better applied to him. My answer: absolutely. While he’s not creating a physical product, he helps build and safeguard the community’s social fabric. If the Philosophy of Building Better resonates with you, I can almost assuredly say that you are a builder.
Now, there are definitely some jobs or industries that make it harder to build well. I struggle to name a field where this mindset can’t apply, but if you consider yourself a builder and are unsure how these ideas fit your work, you may need to ask yourself some tough questions. Maybe you need to look for a new job or find ways to build outside of your day to day work.
Am I building with the flourishing of the end user in mind?
Explanation: This question helps us to set our sites on the proper end of all our building efforts. In many ways this question is the crux of the entire Philosophy of Building Better. If we can only do one thing to build better, it is to genuinely endeavor to build in such a way as to support our end user’s flourishing. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 2 - The Purpose of Building is to Further Human Flourishing.
Real-World Example: Shockingly few buildings, products, and services are truly designed to support the end-user's flourishing. Supporting the end-user’s flourishing means asking “how do I help users do what’s in their best interest?” Not your interest, not your company’s, not your shareholders’—and not even what the user might want in the moment if it goes against their long-term well-being.
I believe that over a long enough time horizon, these interests tend to align. The problem is that when builders focus only on short-term profits, the user’s best interest often conflicts with business goals. But doing right by your customer will be what’s best for your business in the long run. Consider social media apps that promote behaviors making users feel self-conscious, lonely, or anxious. Optimizing for engagement and outrage may drive short-term growth, but long-term, more users will leave. For evidence, look at the growing trend of millennials and Gen-Z reducing their social media usage or leaving altogether as they become more and more aware of its harms.
Have I considered the physical context of what I am building?
Explanation: This and the other questions on context help us to remember to take into account a more holistic view of the impact of our building. The physical context is the tangible, physical setting for a building, product, or service. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 4 - Building is Fundamentally Contextual.
Real-World Example: The physical context of your building efforts can look very different depending on what you are creating. For a house, it includes the actual environment where the structure will stand—such as neighboring buildings, the landscape, local weather patterns, and wildlife. For digital products or services, the context refers to the medium through which they are accessed. This includes considerations like whether the product is optimized for mobile or web platforms and how the visual design supports usability in those settings.
Have I considered the personal context of what I am building?
Explanation: This and the other questions on context help us remember to take into account a more holistic view of the impact of our building. The personal context is the various conditions surrounding the people interacting with what you’ve built. A key thing to remember within the bounds of personal context is that your users are flesh and blood human beings. Whenever we abstract our users or customers as mere statistics, we run the risk of blinding ourselves to the effect our products have on them. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 4 - Building is Fundamentally Contextual.
Real-World Example: The personal context can be the direct users of your product but it can also be the indirect people who interact with those direct users. This would be the neighbors of a house you have built or the family of the user of a social media application.
Have I considered the societal context of what I am building?
Explanation: This and the other questions on context help us remember to take into account a more holistic view of the impact of our building. The societal context takes the indirect personal relationships discussed above and further expands them outwards. The better builder must seek to take into account the implications that their products have for society at large. Similar to personal context, it is important for the better builder to keep in mind that our macro society is the sum of individual people and not just statistics. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 4 - Building is Fundamentally Contextual.
Real-World Example: The societal context can be challenging to take into account given its large scope and the different variables that are contained within it. Cheap t-shirts may have a positive impact for the individual who buys them, but a negative impact for society at large as you take into account the economic, environmental, and human costs of international supply chains and lowest common denominator working conditions. A digital example of societal context is ride-Sharing applications which offer personal convenience but can create traffic congestion, reduce investment in public transport, and create hidden costs for their drivers.
Have I considered the temporal context of what I am building?
Explanation: This and the other questions on context help us remember to take into account a more holistic view of the impact of our building. The temporal context of our products is their setting within time. How they are an evolution of what has come before. How they portend what is to come. How our building efforts will last or decay. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 5 - The Builder Must Learn from the Great Builders of the Past.
Real-World Example: Temporal context looks different for physical versus digital products, but the core idea remains the same: how does what you're building relate to the passage of time? How does a home's design fit into the evolving character of its neighborhood over decades? Is a kitchen appliance designed to last, or intentionally built to fail so users are forced to buy a new one?
A useful lens to consider is the Lindy Effect, the idea that the longer something has lasted, the more likely it is to endure. While not foolproof, Lindy encourages us to be skeptical of discarding time-tested solutions in favor of unproven trends. One striking example: how children are taught to read. For centuries, reading was taught phonetically. But in the 1950s, educational "pioneers" pushed for a whole-word memorization approach. The result? Decades of struggling readers and a legacy of underperformance that persists today.
Does what I am building resolve the competing forces of its context to the best of my ability?
Explanation: After considering the different types of context that influence our building efforts, this question sharpens our awareness of the competing forces within those environments. The goal of any act of building is to apply patterns that resolve these tensions and bring the system into a stable equilibrium. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 4 - Building is Fundamentally Contextual.
Real-World Example: This could mean finding the perfect place to put a bird-feeder in your backyard. For a physical product, this may mean navigating tradeoffs between materials that perform best or those that are more durable. For software, this may mean balancing competing interests such as between a business stakeholder who wants to maximize short-term revenue and a designer that wants to ensure that the customer experience is as good as possible. A mobile game developer may want to encourage users to buy power-ups to drive revenue, but if they are too impactful, the game’s designer may worry about the impact to the experience of free users. Being a better builder doesn't mean solving every roadblock or eliminating all possible tension, but it does mean striving toward solutions that bring balance.
Do I genuinely believe that what I am building is the objectively best approach given the competing forces of its context?
Explanation: This question is an evolution of the prior one. As better builders, it is incumbent upon us to acknowledge that there is an objectively right way to do things. That there exists a pattern that is the objectively correct solution for every system and that it is our job to seek out and implement that pattern. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 3 - There is an Objectively Correct Way to Build.
Real-World Example: For every system, there is an optimal solution to resolve the tension. In building construction, this might mean positioning windows to provide natural light without causing glare or leaving the room too dark. For a service company, it could mean setting an ideal price where both you and your client feel good about the transaction, while ensuring the sustainability of your business. In financial products, it may involve using clear language that educates users without confusion and satisfies legal and risk requirements.
It's crucial to be honest with ourselves about whether we're building the best solution for a given context or settling for a suboptimal one. Through honesty and self-accountability, we grow as better builders. While creating the perfect solution for every problem is unrealistic, keeping this goal in mind encourages us to create better solutions more often. Given the constraints you're facing, the best you might achieve is improving a bad solution to a neutral one. This may not be ideal, but it’s still progress.
Does what I am building avoid taking advantage of people's worst impulses?
Explanation: This question is meant as a wake up call to shake us loose from shallow self-deception and justification. Is what you are building taking advantage of people’s worst impulses? If, fundamentally, you are building a product that takes advantage of the worst aspects of humanity, no amount of incremental improvements may be enough to redeem it. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 6 - Building Better Supports People’s Best Impulses.
Real-World Example: Does what you are building fundamentally prey on people’s weaknesses? Their proclivity for self-deception, unhealthy comparison, or destructive, compulsive behavior? As a better builder, you may work in industries where negative practices are widespread, and exploiting customers is the norm. In these environments, you can be a light in the darkness by doing things the right way. You can be the car salesperson who is transparent and upfront, not exploiting customer insecurities. Or the snack producer who uses high-quality, healthy ingredients.
Remember the Philosophy of Building Better is an aspiration to strive towards. It applies whether you work in an industry that is a clear net positive for society or you are trying to nudge a morally grey one in a better direction. The one requirement is that the better builder be honest with themselves. There may be some lines of work or building projects that you cannot ethically justify participating in. I don’t presume to make that judgement on your behalf, but as a better builder, you need to be prepared to ask this question.
Have I thought of my user/customer as a friend and sought to build in a way that seeks their good as an end unto itself?
Explanation: The flip side of the previous question. It’s not enough for the better builder to avoid exploiting people’s worst impulses, they must also aim to support their best ones. This question encourages us to connect with the user not just as a person, but as a friend whose best interests we’re prioritizing. By building as if for a friend, we ensure that we’re creating solutions that truly support our users' flourishing. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 6 - Building Better Supports People’s Best Impulses.
Real-World Example: A key to building better is humanizing the end user of your product. The more you understand your users or customers, the better equipped you are to build solutions that support their flourishing. Even if you don’t know them personally, designing as if you were building for a friend helps ensure you’re prioritizing their well-being.
For a physical product, this means avoiding shortcuts when selecting materials. For a digital product, it’s about making the user experience as pleasant as possible and ensuring the features they care about are front and center (rather than those that serve your business interests). For a work readiness community project this may mean optimizing for the outcomes of the participants as opposed to any kind of return on investment. Building as if for a friend is especially crucial in industries with information asymmetry. When there’s a mismatch of information in a transaction, there’s a temptation to exploit it, but no one would ever use such an advantage against a friend.
Have I avoided ethically compromising in any of my building decisions?
Explanation: This question forces us to re-examine our building efforts in an attempt to ensure that we have not taken any sort of moral shortcuts. Small steps towards the grey or mental gymnastics arguing that the ends justifies the means can be slippery slopes for builders. In order to build better, we need to strive to act ethically in every facet of our building projects and even be willing to walk away if we are backed into a corner where we would otherwise be forced to ethically compromise. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 7 - The Better Builder Refuses to Ethically Compromise.
Real-World Example: Ethical missteps come in many forms. Rarely does someone go from ethical behavior to serious fraud or malpractice overnight. More often, it starts with small shortcuts and harmless-seeming lies. People justify their actions by thinking no one will be harmed if they take what they want.
For a home builder, this might mean skipping an inspection to meet a deadline. For a journalist, this may mean publishing an unverified story to try to be first to the scoop. For a software engineer, it might mean shipping vulnerable code to meet a marketing timeline.
No matter the type of builder, the choices we make when no one is watching play a significant role in determining whether our creations make the world better or worse.
Have I done what I can to safeguard my building projects against the burdens of time?
Explanation: As better builders, we must accept that our creations won’t last forever. At the same time, we must strive to make them as enduring as possible. This might mean designing a project to endure over time or ensuring it can evolve, grow, or be repaired by the user. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 8 - The Builder Strives to Repair.
Real-World Example: For physical products, building to last might involve carefully selecting materials or designing the product to be easily repairable by the user. Smartphones, for example, are often purposefully designed to be difficult to repair, limiting user control.For digital products, this means ensuring your code is high quality, with processes in place to address vulnerabilities and bugs. It also includes planning for your product's growth in line with evolving operating systems and technical specifications.
Have I been vigilant for opportunities to repair the context surrounding my buildings through my building efforts?
Explanation: Repairing your building efforts doesn’t just mean fixing them. The highest calling of the better builder is when their building efforts are not just internally whole, but resolve the forces in the surrounding context in such a way as to make their environment more whole as well. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 8 - The Builder Strives to Repair.
Real-World Example: Perhaps this could mean remodeling your home in such a way as to pay homage to your neighborhood’s aesthetics. For a digital product this could mean having a philanthropic effort tied into your sales or encouraging healthier behavior in your users (which in turn impacts those around them).
Have I committed myself to a higher standard for ethical building by signing The Builder's Oath?
Explanation: The keystone of the Philosophy of Building Better is making a commitment to pursue a better way of building. All the good will in the world will be for naught if it is not paired with a commitment to doing things the right way. Even, and especially, when it is the harder path. For a deeper discussion, refer to Chapter 9 - The Builder’s Oath.
Real-World Example: You can read and sign my proposed version of The Builder’s Oath here. More important than signing this particular oath, I hope you will consider making a commitment to a higher standard of conduct no matter what kind of builder you are.
I hope you have found my efforts to outline a better way of building meaningful and thought provoking, but this project has been worthwhile even if not a single person reads what I have written.
For years, I have had this vague notion that there was something wrong with the way that so many things were built, but I could do no more than gesture at half-formed critiques. Going through the effort of forcing my thoughts onto paper has forged them into a prism through which I can now view the world. The Philosophy of Building Better is a framework that allows me to discuss, with specificity, what is wrong with so much of society and the practical steps we can take to begin making it right. Not in a month or 10 years, but today.
With all that being said, what comes next?
In the weeks and months to come, I will continue to dig into the Philosophy of Building Better and its practical applications. I intend to use real life examples to showcase how the principles of the philosophy can be applied, to gather insights from builders who are doing a good job of building better, and to examine some of the most popular products we use every day to discuss how they could be better built.
In addition to these plans, I also hope to dedicate more of my time to building outside of the confines of this writing project. Part of the initial motivation of this project was to serve as a forcing function for me to elucidate my own building philosophy so that it could be applied to my building efforts. While I very much consider my writing to be an act of building, the effort I have put into this series, as well as building out TheBuildingBetterProject.com has forced some other projects I have had aspirations of building to the side temporarily.
Armed with the Philosophy of Building Better, I intend to return to these nascent ideas and to build them with the precepts of this framework at the front of mind.
I will share what I am learning in my building efforts as I learn them in real time.
As with any better builder, I am sure I will make mistakes (I already have in this and other building projects), and I will share with you the lessons I have learned from my missteps.
Going from the initial genesis of this idea to two years later having this series completed and The Builder’s Oath accessible for all builders to sign, feels like a massive accomplishment. I consider it the greatest accomplishment of my professional life, but I also view it as simply the starting point. The foundation upon which my other great professional accomplishments will be built upon.
I am excited for what comes next and I hope you will continue to join me on the journey of putting my building philosophy into action.
Like I said at the beginning of this post, this is an end, but it is not the end.
I want to leave you with a vignette that Christopher Alexander tells at the end of The Timeless Way of Building. For all the grandiose language, inspiring quotes, and beautiful paintings I have included throughout this series it is important to remember that true better building is not some rarified act or super natural occurrence. Building better is heroic, but it is not extraordinary. In fact, once you have immersed yourself in this philosophy, building better won’t feel special at all. That’s because it is building in line with the natural order around us. Achieving this harmony is the most natural, ordinary thing we experience in our lives. As ordinary as slicing a strawberry:
To act as nature does is the most ordinary thing in the world. It is as ordinary as a simple act of slicing strawberries.
One of the most moving moments in my life, was also one of the most ordinary. I was with a friend in Denmark.
We were having strawberries for tea, and I noticed that she sliced the strawberries very very fine, almost like paper. Of course, it took longer than usual, and I asked her why she did it. When you eat a strawberry, she said, the taste of it comes from the open surfaces you touch.
The more surfaces there are, the more it tastes. The finer I slice the strawberries, the more surfaces there are, the more it tastes.
Her whole life was like that. It is so ordinary, that it is hard to explain what is so deep about it. Animal almost, nothing superfluous, each thing that is done, done totally.
To live like that, it is the easiest thing in the world; but for a man whose head is full of images, it is the hardest. I learned more about building in that one moment, than in ten years of building.
When we are as ordinary as that, with nothing left in any of our actions, except what is required-then we can make towns and buildings which are as infinitely various, and as peaceful, and as wild and living, as the fields of windblown grass.
Almost everybody feels at peace with nature: listening to the ocean waves against the shore, by a still lake, in a field of grass, on a windblown heath. One day, when we have learned the timeless way again, we shall feel the same about our towns, and we shall feel as much at peace in them, as we do today walking by the ocean, or stretched out in the long grass of a meadow.
Thanks again for following along and I hope you will enjoy all that I have in store for the project.
Let’s build better,
Erik