He laid out those rules as a set of maxims, which boil down to being truthful, saying no more than you need to, being relevant, and being clear.13 Grice’s maxims also shed light on politeness. Being polite means following a conversation, not co-opting it and dragging it in other directions. It means knowing who you’re talking with, and knowing what they know. It’s rude to talk over people, to misunderstand who they are. Those maxims happen to neatly map to the same design principles laid out by Don Norman, and the ones that guided Brian Lathrop in the creation of Audi’s self-driving A7.
