Words Are Interface

The words are the design. Button labels, error messages, empty states, confirmations. People read them under pressure, so they should say what will happen rather than describe a mechanism.

'Submit' tells nobody anything. 'Save draft' does. 'An error occurred' is useless. 'That email is already registered. Sign in instead?' is a way forward.

Accessibility is decided here, not bolted on. The React course made this concrete: semantic elements, labeled inputs, visible focus, announced changes, keyboard-only operation.

Deciding at design time that every action is a real button and every field has a real label costs nothing. Discovering it after the interface is built is a rewrite. This is the single cheapest quality decision in the whole project, and it is made now.