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A layout is not a neutral container — choosing the right layout paradigm (feed, board, table, canvas, master-detail, dashboard, gallery, timeline, map, single-focus) is a design decision that shapes how content is understood. Once chosen, the same paradigm and page skeleton must be reused consistently across the application so users build one mental model. This is consistency at the macro scale, above component and token consistency. Use when deciding the overall structure of a screen, designing page templates, or reviewing whether screens across a product feel like one coherent application.

The most important actions and content in a UI should be visually prominent — through size, colour, weight, and position. Visual hierarchy guides the user's eye to what matters most and signals which action is primary. Use when designing button groups, CTAs, dashboards, cards, or any layout where actions or content have different importance levels.

Manage user expectations during wait times with appropriate loading states — from simple spinners to complex skeleton screens and staggered animations. Perceived performance is often more important than actual load time. Use when designing data-heavy components, handling API calls, building hero sections, or improving the feel of a slow interface.

A brand's visual tone — playful or serious, rounded or angular — should be consistent across all UI elements. Shape language in typography, border-radius, and iconography communicates personality before a single word is read. Use when establishing a design system, choosing icon libraries, setting border-radius tokens, or reviewing visual consistency.

Any component rendered many times — cards, list rows, table cells, nav items, tiles, KPI widgets, feed entries — is a fixed slot model, not a free-form box. The same slots appear in the same place in every instance and stay aligned across siblings even when text and values vary in length. Reserve space for optional slots, pin anchor elements (CTA, price, value), clamp overflowing text, and give the full value back via title/tooltip. Use when building or reviewing any repeated component whose content length differs between instances.

UI density — how much information and how many features appear at once — should match the primary platform and user type. Desktop supports dense, feature-rich interfaces; mobile requires focused, reduced layouts. Enterprise power users tolerate higher density than occasional users. Use when designing data tables, dashboards, toolbars, or adapting a desktop product for mobile.

Configuration UIs for domain experts — users who understand their field deeply but are not software developers — require domain language, sensible defaults, and grouping by professional concept rather than technical parameter. Use when designing settings panels, solver or algorithm configuration, constraint editors, or any UI where the user needs to tune the behaviour of a complex system without understanding its internals.

Operational expert tools — used by domain specialists for hours every day — require a different design approach than consumer or occasional-use software. Information density, workflow linearity, and at-a-glance status take priority over whitespace and discoverability. Use when designing dispatch tools, warehouse management, logistics, scheduling, or any B2B tool whose primary users are trained specialists.

Scroll areas inside a layout should be avoided wherever possible. When unavoidable, allow only one scroll axis at a time and always keep the user in control. Use when designing layouts, data tables, panels, or any component that might introduce an inner scroll container.

Overlays — modals, drawers, bottom sheets, popovers — interrupt or augment the main flow. Each type has a different scope, blocking level, and appropriate use case. Use when designing dialogs, confirmation prompts, side panels, action sheets, or any UI element that appears above the main content layer.

Choose light, dark, or combined color mode deliberately based on brand tone and user context. Offer a theme selector only when user control genuinely matters — enterprise tools, data-heavy UIs, or extended-use applications. Use when defining the base color palette, designing a design system, or deciding whether to build dark mode support.

Disney's 12 animation principles, cinematic storytelling techniques, and comic book conventions apply to web UI — used subtly, they make interfaces feel alive, intentional, and emotionally resonant. Use when designing transitions, micro-interactions, onboarding flows, scroll animations, or any motion in the UI.

Semantic HTML5, SEO fundamentals, alt texts, progressive enhancement, SPA considerations, device capability detection, and user context awareness. Good HTML is the foundation of accessibility, SEO, and resilient UI. Use when building any web UI, reviewing markup quality, or optimising for search and accessibility.

Audit UI performance with Lighthouse and fix Core Web Vitals — LCP, CLS, INP. Fast UI is good UX. Use when optimising page load, fixing layout shift, reducing input delay, improving Lighthouse scores, or reviewing images, fonts, and render-blocking resources.

In large applications, information architecture determines whether users can find, understand, and act on data. Naming matters. The UI should mirror the data model and signal how data can be transformed. Dangerous or irreversible changes always require a confirm dialog. Use when designing navigation, naming entities, structuring large feature sets, or modelling data-driven UI.

Micro-interactions are small, purposeful animations and responses that reward the user and make the interface feel alive — an animated icon, a satisfying toggle, a subtle reveal. Borrowed from the natural world, they add delight without distraction. Use when designing interactive components, success states, toggles, loaders, or any moment worth celebrating.

Typography feels cohesive and intentional when font sizes follow a modular scale — a ratio-based sequence where every size is mathematically related to the others. Use when defining type scales, setting up design tokens, reviewing font size choices, or when typography feels inconsistent or arbitrary.

Quick global settings — currency, language, region, units — belong in a persistent, low-profile location such as a header toolbar or footer. These controls are frequent but not primary, so they use small typography and stay out of the main content hierarchy. Use when designing global selectors, locale switchers, or user preference controls that apply across the whole product.

Mobile, tablet, and desktop are different interaction paradigms — not the same layout scaled up or down. Sections can be hidden, repositioned, or made sticky on mobile. Navigation and primary actions move. Use when designing responsive layouts, adapting desktop UI for mobile, or deciding what to show on each breakpoint.

Sticky and fixed positioning keeps critical UI persistent as the user scrolls — headers at the top, toolbars at the bottom on mobile. Use deliberately: too many fixed layers create visual noise and reduce content area. Use when designing navigation headers, bottom toolbars, floating action buttons, or table column headers.

Related features and tasks — such as purchase flows, onboarding, or multi-step configuration — should be designed as natural, guided paths that feel coherent and fit the product hierarchy. Use wizards for complex sequential tasks. Use when designing flows, onboarding, checkout, setup sequences, or any multi-step user journey.

Elevation — subtle shadows and layering — communicates visual hierarchy by lifting elements above the surface. Combined with border-radius, it creates the tactile quality of cards, modals, and interactive surfaces. Use when designing cards, dropdowns, modals, tooltips, or any floating UI element.

Forms have three layers of guidance: helper text below the input explains what to enter, placeholder shows the expected format, and validation confirms correctness. Real-time validation for complex inputs. Submit enables only when the form is valid. Use when designing or reviewing any form, input field, or data entry UI.

UI layout and grouping should follow Gestalt principles so users immediately understand which controls, commands, and elements belong together. Use when designing or reviewing component layout, navigation, toolbars, forms, dashboards, or any UI where visual grouping communicates relationships.

UI patterns borrowed from the physical world feel immediately intuitive — cards feel graspable, carousels feel scrollable, drawers feel pullable. Use real-world metaphors deliberately to reduce the learning curve and make interactions feel natural. Use when designing layout patterns, gestures, or navigation paradigms.

UI should make it immediately clear where the user is, what context they are operating in, and what their actions will affect. Use lines, regions, colour areas, breadcrumbs, and scope labels to communicate hierarchy and context — especially in deep navigation structures or multi-section layouts.

When something goes wrong, the user must be able to recover or try again. Toasts, inline errors, banners, and notification patterns each have a specific role. Use when designing error states, success confirmations, async feedback, in-place editing, or any system that communicates state changes to the user.

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UI must comply with WCAG 2.2 Level AA, as required by the European Accessibility Act (EN 301 549). Do not deviate without deliberate justification. Disabled UI elements are explicitly exempt from colour contrast requirements. Use when designing, building, or reviewing any user-facing interface for accessibility compliance.

Pipeline skill — turns a URL or DESIGN.md into a concrete UI structure with decisions already made. Extracts live design tokens, normalizes them into a semantic system, applies UX principles, and outputs an actionable UI spec. Use when building UI for an existing brand from scratch, auditing a design system, or refactoring visual inconsistency.

Every interactive element needs a complete set of visual states — rest, hover, active/pressed, focus, disabled, and loading. States should be derived algorithmically from the base colour, not chosen arbitrarily. Use when designing buttons, links, inputs, or any clickable component.

Complex data deserves multiple view modes — grid, list, table — chosen by the user based on their task. Row and item selection should use large hit areas (the whole row or card, not just a checkbox). Selected state is communicated through a subtle background colour shift. Mass actions appear when items are selected. Use when designing data tables, product listings, file browsers, or any multi-item collection.

UI design and review should apply Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics — the foundational principles for evaluating and improving usability. Use when auditing an interface, designing interaction flows, writing error messages, or reviewing any UI for usability issues.

Derive a full UI colour palette algorithmically from one or two brand colours. Darker and lighter variants for interactive states, desaturated greys from the brand hue for borders and backgrounds, and semantic colours that feel coherent with the brand rather than generic. Use when building a colour system from scratch or expanding a limited brand palette for UI use.

Buttons, inputs, pills, badges, calendars, and other interactive components form a visual family — they share the same border-radius, colour logic, shadow scale, border style, and spacing rhythm. Inconsistency between them breaks the sense of a coherent product. Use when building or reviewing a component library, design system, or any set of UI components.

Product visuals — hero shots, demos, screenshots, landing-page panels — must reproduce the real product, not a stylised poster of it. Design with real content and real data, mirror the actual output the product generates, keep every label and number truthful, and refuse fabricated marketing chrome. Use when building landing pages, hero sections, product screenshots, demo panels, or any visual that stands in for the real thing.

Keep status and error colours minimal and consistent — too many semantic colours confuse users. Each colour must mean exactly one thing. Errors should be recoverable, large failures must be prevented, and the UI should always give the user a path forward. Use when designing status indicators, error states, form validation, alerts, or any feedback system.

When data has both a tabular/list representation and a visual representation, show both simultaneously and keep them synchronized. Clicking a row highlights the corresponding element in the visual view, and vice versa. Applies to maps, diagrams, timelines, and charts that accompany a data table. Use when designing any UI where data appears in two different representations at once.

Tabs organise related content under a shared context — switching tabs swaps the view without leaving the page. Use when a screen has multiple distinct content areas that share a common header or action set, and when the user needs to switch between them frequently. Use when designing tabbed layouts, content panels, settings pages, detail views, or dashboards with multiple data views.