Agentic Builders Hub Design Systems Show Don't Ask
Work · 04 of 04

SHOW,
DON'T ASK

Director of Product Design  ·  GoDaddy  ·  2023 – present

When AI products ask users to describe what they want before showing what is possible, two things happen. The user does the AI's job, and the product learns nothing useful from the interaction. I introduced Show Don't Ask in late 2023 as a direct response to that pattern. This talk covers how the idea started, how it spread from design into product and engineering without a mandate, and how it eventually became infrastructure, a shared language model grounding AI behavior across three builders simultaneously. The recording also shows how I present and defend thinking under live questioning.

From Show Don't Ask to Intent at Scale From UX Process to Agentic Design
99%
AI Feature Adoption
Lift tied to this work
3
Builders
Aligned under a single shared language model
2023
Year Introduced
Became a product tenant the following year
2023
The interaction principle
Early AI products asked users to describe what they wanted before showing anything. I introduced a different approach: demonstrate capability first, then refine based on how people respond. Reactions surface intent faster and more accurately than questions do.
2023
Adopted by Product and Engineering
The language spread. "Show, Don't Ask" became the shared framing for how teams move forward under ambiguity — not just in design, but across product and engineering decision-making. Named in the 2023 year-end review as a foundational AI strategy for the entire org.
2025
Became infrastructure
As usage scaled, similar language produced different outputs across builders. I moved language alignment into the system itself. Research, content, and design converged into a shared language model so interpretation became consistent across all three surfaces. What started as an interaction principle became required infrastructure.
What the talk covers
  • Why AI products default to asking — and why that creates friction that compounds at scale
  • How showing possibility first changes the quality of signal you get back from users
  • The evolution from interaction pattern to shared team vocabulary to system-level infrastructure
  • How intent-first design reduces drift between what AI infers and what customers mean
  • How the idea spread from UX into product and engineering without a mandate
What it became
  • Adopted as a shared operating principle across UX, PM and engineering at GoDaddy, without a mandate. It spread because it solved a problem every discipline was hitting independently.
  • Grounded in a Common Language model that aligned research, content, and design to interpret customer language the same way across three builders
  • Named the foundational AI strategy in the 2023 year-end review, adopted across Presence, Website, and Studio
  • Showing before asking drives engagement. That is the mechanism behind the 99% lift in AI-generated copy adoption across builder products.
  • The principle that AI should demonstrate value before asking for input became the lens for evaluating every AI decision in production, from content generation to agent responses.
"

In the realm of AI, formulated a cohesive team vision centered around "Show, don't ask." This vision served as a consistent guiding principle for the Presence, Website and Studio designers in developing and implementing AI materials. The strategy provided a theme for all projects to rally around and become a common language across UX and Product.

2023  ·  GoDaddy
Early work
"

EJ is a skilled Visual Designer with a strong User Experience understanding. He's quick to understanding user challenges and works efficiently to create beautiful yet usable interfaces. He's very pro-active with staying current or ahead of industry trends and best practices. He was great to manage and awesome to work with.

2013  ·  Will Mejia, VP of User Experience
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