The gates are the fine detail of a chart. The level at which Human Design is actually used by most practitioners is coarser, and it is worth setting out because the entries in this set sit inside it.
From the pattern of defined and undefined centres, the system derives a type. There are four, with one subdivided: Manifestor, Generator with the sub-type Manifesting Generator, Projector, and Reflector. Type is determined mechanically from which centres are defined and which motors connect to the Throat, so two people with very different gate activations can share a type.
Each type is given a strategy, a rule about how to engage with the world. Manifestors are told to inform before acting. Generators and Manifesting Generators are told to wait to respond rather than initiating. Projectors are told to wait for invitation. Reflectors, who have no defined centres at all and are rare, are told to wait a full lunar cycle before major decisions.
Each chart also has an authority, which is the part of the body the system holds should make decisions: emotional authority where the Solar Plexus is defined, sacral authority where the Sacral is defined and the Solar Plexus is not, and several less common forms below that. The consistent instruction is that the mind is not the authority; it is treated as a good adviser to others and an unreliable decision-maker for oneself.
Practitioners describe the whole of this as an experiment to be run over time rather than a set of claims to be believed, and Ra Uru Hu framed it that way himself. The framing is worth noting because it is unusual: the system asks to be tested by the individual rather than accepted, while making no provision for testing it any other way.