Experience Design

Guide broad experience-design requests to the smallest sufficient strategy, critique, writing, or design-system building block.

Canonical skill profile. This page is generated from the repository contract. The linked SKILL.md remains the source of authority.

Jump to

• Overview
• When to use
• When not to use
• Core moves
• Expected output
• Verification
• Handoff signals
• Pairs well with
• Anti-patterns

View the canonical contract on GitHub.

Overview

Use this optional family entrypoint when a requester names an experience outcome but the dominant design question is unclear. It selects among ux-strategy, ux-provocation, heuristic-audit, ux-writing, and design-system-intelligence.

Use a building block directly when the question is specific. This family does not design, approve, implement, or promote patterns by itself.

When to Use

• A request says “improve the experience” without identifying the design decision.
• Strategy, critique, content, or design-system concerns may be mixed.
• A team needs to choose the right design lens before producing an artifact.

When NOT to Use

• The task clearly matches one design skill.
• The request is implementation-only or needs a product, engineering, or governance decision.
• The requester expects a final design, pattern promotion, or external change.

Core Moves

1. Frame the experience outcome. Identify users, context, surface, desired behavior, constraints, evidence, and decision owner.
2. Classify the dominant design question. Distinguish strategy, hypothesis pressure-test, usability audit, content clarity, or design-system alignment.
3. Select the smallest path. Choose one primary building block and add support only when its output is required by the next design decision.
4. Keep observation separate from proposal. Label evidence, interpretation, hypothesis, recommendation, and unresolved design judgment.
5. Verify and hand off. Return a bounded result, decision owner, next check, and handoff without implementing or promoting design changes.

Building Blocks

• ux-strategy — align experience direction with user, product, and business context.
• ux-provocation — pressure-test a hypothesis, assumption, or experience direction.
• heuristic-audit — inspect an interface against usability heuristics.
• ux-writing — improve interface language, clarity, and action guidance.
• design-system-intelligence — review artifacts against a declared design-system source.

Do not load all five blocks because the task mentions “UX”.

Optional Modules

• Experience intake — bound audience, surface, outcome, and evidence.
• Design-question classification — distinguish direction, critique, content, and system concerns.
• Selective composition — add a supporting block only when its output is necessary.
• Decision-owner check — preserve product, design-system, and implementation ownership.

Activation Triggers

• Direction or prioritization is unclear → ux-strategy.
• A hypothesis needs pressure-testing → ux-provocation.
• An existing interface needs inspection → heuristic-audit.
• Interface language is the primary issue → ux-writing.
• A declared design system is the source of truth → design-system-intelligence.

Expected Output

experience_design_review:
  outcome: <desired experience outcome>
  surface: <surface or unknown>
  dominant_question: strategy | provocation | audit | writing | design_system
  primary_building_block: <skill>
  supporting_building_blocks: [<only necessary skills>]
  evidence: [<observations or gaps>]
  recommendation: <bounded result>
  human_decisions: [<design or product decisions not delegated>]
  verification: <next check>
  handoffs: [<owner or next skill>]

Verification

• The experience outcome and surface are explicit or unknown.
• The primary design question and building block are justified.
• Supporting blocks have a clear dependency.
• Evidence, interpretation, and proposal remain distinct.
• Ownership, verification, and handoff are explicit.
• No implementation, approval, or pattern promotion is claimed.

Handoff Signals

• Product outcome or investment is unclear → product-management.
• Delivery or implementation is ready → feature-planning or implementation owner.
• Design-system owner decision is required → design-system-intelligence and owner review.
• Cross-functional trade-off is unresolved → triad-check.

Pairs Well With

• ux-strategy
• ux-provocation
• heuristic-audit
• ux-writing
• design-system-intelligence
• triad-check

Anti-patterns

• Treating every UX request as a strategy exercise.
• Loading every design block before identifying the design question.
• Presenting heuristic findings as user research evidence.
• Promoting a pattern without design-system owner review.
• Turning the family into a design generator or implementation runtime.