# Design Philosophy

The elementary OS HIG isn't just about a set of concrete rules; it's meant to be flexible and extensible. As such, this very first portion of the guideline is all about the guiding philosophies we employ.

For a quick design crash course, we like ["The User is Drunk" on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2CbbBLVaPk):

{% embed url="<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2CbbBLVaPk>" %}

Read on for our four guiding philosophies.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.elementary.io/hig/design-philosophy.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.