Ladder of Abstraction

Moving up or down the abstraction ladder can give you clarity. Abstract concepts (e.g. freedom) are at the top of the ladder, while concrete concepts (e.g. eating cereals) are at the bottom. Try going from concrete to abstract or vice versa. For example, start with the end-user experience when designing an API and climb down the details on how to do it. Or start with the nitty gritty implementation details and work out the constraints. The Ladder of Abstraction is a technique that lets you discover new dimensions of a problem or challenge by asking a series of “why” and “how” questions.