The Digital House
The website is not packaging around the House. For many people it is the first room. Its invisible behaviour should be held to the same standard as what is visible.
Privacy by default
Do not collect a visitor merely because the browser makes it possible. New tracking, profiling or client data collection should have a real service purpose, an owner, a retention rule and the right consent or legal basis before release.
Accessibility is interface quality
The digital House should remain usable without a mouse, with reduced motion, at enlarged text sizes and when visual information is unavailable. Art direction and accessibility are solved together rather than one being added after the other.
Performance is material
Transferred bytes, image derivatives, video weight and main-thread work are part of the experience. A beautiful page that delays its own image, shifts while loading or wastes device resources is unfinished.
AI is infrastructure, not evidence
AI may assist research, code, production, image work and editorial development. It must not manufacture false provenance, hide uncertainty, impersonate a real source or create the recognisable aesthetic of the House by default.
Security before convenience
Third-party scripts, account systems, APIs and client services increase the attack surface. New capability should justify the dependency it introduces and pass preview-level security and release checks before production.
Open the same House everywhere
Mobile and desktop may be separately art-directed, but public identity, canonical URLs, factual content and legal obligations remain one House. Device-specific implementation must not create contradictory public truths.