IDEA
An evolving archive by Kelly PengDesign × Engineering × Culture
A place for ideas still becoming—notes, prototypes, essays, and interface studies.
I use this space to make thinking visible. Some pieces are finished; others are snapshots from the middle of the process.
Build in public · 01
kollab — learning design engineering, together.
A shared learning space I'm building in public, so the invisible knowledge new grads need stops being invisible.
In the wild · 02
Shipped work, live on the internet.
Freelance sites and open-source builds—live previews, click through to the real thing.
Articles & field notes · 14
Writing to find the shape of a problem.
Product thinking, interface research, thesis experiments, and reading notes collected from the original Ideas library.
01 · Featured article · Design engineering
A Design System Is a Decision System
How I connected product judgment, semantic foundations, typed React APIs, motion, Storybook, and release quality for an AI Hiring Copilot.
02The Feedback Is There. The Insight Isn’t.Turning scattered customer signals into product intelligence.↗
03Designing ConfidenceA visual language for openpilot’s trust states.↗
04Cultural ProbeUX research as a soft system of asking.↗
05Interview QuestionsHow to write prompts that let people stay human.↗
06Kelly Thesis EverythingThe whole thesis—statement, presentation, and development process.↗
07Instruction for UseProject One: Time—the index of reading notes, research, and experiments.↗
08Reading NotesJane Fitz-Randolph and James Jespersen—notes from the thesis shelf.↗
09Touching TimeClock studies sketched in p5.js, where time loops instead of running out.↗
10Interactive Game—Showing the RulesProcess 102—Figma iterations that teach dinner-table rules through play.↗
11Chopstick RulesHold them the wrong way and the camera feed pixelates—a p5.js etiquette machine.↗
12Rules & Physical Space CollagesEtiquette mapped onto hands, lazy Susans, and dining rooms.↗
13Gallery NotesJudy Chicago’s Herstory and what the gallery taught the thesis.↗
14The Second SexReading notes on philosophy, identity, and the self in relation.↗
More thoughts,
in progress.