Design Critique
When to use
Use this skill for design critique when you need to review a visual design against its purpose. The expected result is a design critique with specific revisions.
Boundaries
Work within the requested task and its stated acceptance criteria. Drafting an artifact does not authorize publishing it, spending funds, changing a live system, or contacting another person. Identify any such action separately before taking it.
Inputs
Inspect the design, audience, user task, brand rules, and viewport. Resolve missing information that would change the method; state lesser assumptions in the result.
Method
- Diagnose. Collect audience, brand rules, production constraints, references, rights, and the action the work must support.
- Decide. Evaluate hierarchy, legibility, interaction, and visual consistency.
- Produce. Build a design critique with specific revisions from the inspected material; keep assumptions distinguishable from observed facts.
Decision rules
- Generate genuinely distinct directions before selecting one. Evaluate legibility, originality, and channel fit at actual size.
- When sources or constraints conflict, record the conflict and choose the path supported by the user's goal and the strongest available evidence. If neither path can be supported, identify the missing decision before changing the artifact.
Domain rules
- Compare at least two distinct concepts against the brief before polishing one.
- Check visual hierarchy, legibility, accessibility, and asset rights at the final size.
Verification
Distinguish observed issues from subjective preference. Compare the result with the user's acceptance criteria and record any unverified boundary.
Deliver a creative brief or artifact specification with selection rationale, export details, and revision criteria.
Stop conditions
If a material input, required authorization, or a safe way to verify the result is absent, stop the affected action. Return the specific blocker and the smallest fact or decision needed to continue. Do not report an unrun check as passed.
Output
Provide a design critique with specific revisions. Include the decisive evidence and actual verification result. Name any artifact location and unresolved issue that affects its use.
