Flow

Definition

Flow is the experience goal of Hearth: the complete working experience in which a person can keep moving forward without constantly going backwards to finish admin, search for context, update records, chase missing information, or remember what the system should already know.

Flow draws directly on Csíkszentmihályi’s psychological flow construct — the absorbed, present state where the worker is fully in the work. Engineering flow is how Hearth honours the Engagement pillar of erma.

The future of case management is not more screens, more tasks, or more workflow. It is a complete flow experience.

What flow requires the platform to know

For the user to stay in flow, Hearth must understand:

• The concern being worked on.
• The person doing the work.
• The current lifecycle state.
• The current circumstances.
• The history and context.
• Previous best practice.
• Relevant obligations and risks.
• The likely next need.

When the platform holds these, the user does not need to hold them. Cognitive load drops. Flow becomes possible.

How flow shows up in the UI

• Context carries forward across screens, sessions, devices.
• The system prepares the next useful thing before the user asks.
• Assistance appears as flow-cues — soft, ignorable, translucent.
• The jobs to be done remain in peripheral vision instead of being hidden in menus, queues, or memory.
• The user can delegate bounded work to whisper and take over instantly.
• The user is never forced backwards for administrative completion.
• Attention is treated as the user’s most valuable resource.

What flow is not

• Not the absence of friction altogether — meaningful work has inherent friction. Flow is the absence of avoidable friction.
• Not prediction without limits — Whisper stays quiet when it has nothing useful to say.
• Not invisible automation — delegated work must remain visible and interruptible.
• Not “user flow” in the generic UX sense (a defined path through screens). Flow in Hearth is a psychological state the platform protects.

Design questions

Does this help the user stay in flow?

This is design test #1 (../AGENTS.md §6 / ../product/design-tests/t01-stays-in-flow.md).

A feature that has to interrupt the user to be useful is the wrong feature.