Design
Make the intended action, idea or feeling clear through a visual direction specific to this audience, content and medium. Deliver the direction, artifact or working implementation the human asked for.
Choose the job
- New direction or scoped refinement: Start from the real material and existing conventions. Use direction and composition for an open direction; for a refinement, keep the established direction and go straight to the relevant reference.
- Redesign an existing interface: First view and capture the live baseline and identify what must survive. If it cannot be viewed, stop the redesign and report the blocker.
- Reproduce a supplied mockup or screenshot: Use reference fidelity. Treat the reference as the target where it gives evidence. If it also changes an existing interface's design, capture the live baseline first. Respect access, real content and required behavior throughout.
- Generate an interface concept image: Imagine owns that deliverable and returns to Design for authorized implementation. Design owns other visual artifacts and can use an appropriate production or asset tool for them. Use Critique for a review-only request.
- Compare visual or interaction approaches: Use the shared prototype method to isolate the decision. Keep the experiment outside production.
Read only what changes the work:
| Design question | Reference |
|---|---|
| What should lead, and how should the composition express the idea? | Direction and composition |
| How should type, color, spacing, surfaces and imagery work together? | Visual language |
| How should a website, product screen, workflow or component work? | Web, UI and content |
| How should it adapt to space, input, accessibility needs and locale? | Adaptive and accessible design |
| How should identity, tokens, components or themes stay coherent? | Identity and design systems |
| What should move, how should it respond to a gesture, and when should motion go away? | Motion and gestures |
| How should an illustration, icon, poster, slide deck or visual asset be composed and produced? | Visual artifacts and assets |
| How should an algorithm or set of parameters create the artwork? | Generative work |
| What evidence will make the result reviewable and usable? | Review and delivery |
Develop and deliver
- Read the context. Identify the audience, what they should do or understand, the medium and constraints. Inspect existing work, content, assets and approved decisions. Separate supplied requirements from assumptions and inspiration.
- Choose an approach. Use the structure that serves the job and give one meaningful thing priority. Decide what stays familiar and where a specific visual choice adds value. Tie that choice to the actual content or use; if the same design could serve an unrelated project after swapping the name, revisit the structure before adding polish.
- Prove the consequential part first. Use a representative section, task, state, crop or sequence with realistic material. Compare alternatives only when they answer a live question. Ask about consequential direction or product choices that remain unresolved; honor decisions and authority already given. For a local edit, make the edit directly.
- Deliver in the intended medium. Use the existing stack, approved assets and real content where available. Carry the direction through the relevant states, formats and input methods. Label assumptions and placeholders. Keep intermediates in
.work/temp/<task>/under the workspace rules. - Inspect and substantiate. Use review and delivery to give Critique the actual preview or export, target and applicable cases. Test owns behavior and measurement evidence when needed. Recheck material corrections. Deliver the result and relevant editable sources, with key decisions and unverified conditions.
Done: The requested result works in its intended context to the extent verified, with evidence and any material gaps stated.