running-design-reviews
Help users run effective design reviews and critiques. Use when someone is giving design feedback, establishing design review processes, struggling to evaluate designs, or wants to improve how their team discusses design work.
What this skill does
# Running Design Reviews Help the user run effective design reviews and critiques using frameworks from 8 product leaders. ## How to Help When the user asks for help with design reviews: 1. **Understand the review context** - Ask what stage the design is at and what kind of feedback is needed 2. **Establish the hierarchy** - Help them prioritize feedback by value, then usability, then delight 3. **Structure the critique** - Guide them on how to frame feedback constructively 4. **Set the quality bar** - Help them define what "good enough to ship" means ## Core Principles ### Follow the feedback hierarchy: Value, then Ease of Use, then Delight Julie Zhuo: "The first thing that's most important to address is, well, is this thing actually valuable, is this solving the problem? Then once we do that, then let's focus on the next layer which I think about as ease of use... And then finally... delight." Disregard feedback about aesthetics until the core value proposition is validated. ### Assign sponsors for major projects Karri Saarinen: "We are basically the sponsors for the projects. So then we are responsible reviewing the work. And so we might just have a meeting where we go through, okay..." Assign a founder or senior leader as a sponsor for every major project to oversee quality through live demos rather than static slide decks. ### Review 100% of shipped screens Dmitry Zlokazov: "Founders of the company, they still review a hundred percent of screens that are being shipped and everything that you will see in the app pass this review." Maintain a high quality bar by having senior leaders review every user-facing screen before shipping. ### Structure reviews around specific feedback requests Geoff Charles: "Any large rock that we have on the roadmap needs to be brought into the product review process... but it needs to be structured in a way where you are asking specifically for what type of feedback you want." Only bring high-risk decisions to formal reviews and require presenters to specify exactly what feedback they need. ### Start big picture before minutiae Jessica Hische: "Always think big picture before you think minutiae, because sometimes people think that... They'll throw a bunch of minutiae stuff at me, but it's because they don't know what's really bugging them." Ask "What is the overall thing that's bothering me?" before commenting on specific elements. ### Use blurred vision to see cohesiveness Jessica Hische: "Use 'blurred eyes' to look at a brand's overall cohesiveness rather than focusing on individual pixels." Step back from details to assess whether the overall design holds together. ## Questions to Help Users - "What specific type of feedback are you looking for in this review?" - "Is the core value proposition clear? Does this solve the right problem?" - "Before we discuss details - what's the overall feeling when you first look at this?" - "What are the highest-risk elements of this design that need the most scrutiny?" - "What would make this not shippable? Are we close to that line?" - "If a user sees this for three seconds, what will they understand?" ## Common Mistakes to Flag - **Feedback without hierarchy** - Mixing aesthetic opinions with core value concerns - **Static reviews** - Reviewing slide decks instead of interactive demos - **Unstructured feedback requests** - Not specifying what kind of feedback is needed - **Skipping to details** - Critiquing pixels before validating the concept - **No quality bar** - Shipping without senior review or clear standards ## Deep Dive For all 10 insights from 8 guests, see `references/guest-insights.md` ## Related Skills - product-taste-intuition - running-effective-meetings - scoping-cutting
Related in Design
contribute
IncludedLocal-only OSS contribution command center. Auto-refreshes the user's in-flight PR and issue state on invoke so conversations start with full context — no need to brief Claude on what's in flight. Helps the user find issues to contribute to on GitHub, builds per-repo dossiers of what each upstream expects (CLA, DCO, branch convention, AI policy, draft-first, review bots, issue templates), runs deterministic gates before any external action so AI-assisted contributions don't reach maintainers as slop. State is markdown-only: candidate files at ~/.contribute-system/candidates/, repo dossiers at ~/.contribute-system/research/, append-only event log at ~/.contribute-system/log.jsonl. No database, no cloud calls. Use when the user asks about their PRs / issues / contributions, wants to find new work to take on, claim an issue, build/refresh a repo's dossier, or draft a Design Issue or PR. Trigger with "/contribute", "what's my PR status", "find a contribution", "claim issue X", "draft a Design Issue for Y", "refresh dossier for Z".
architectural-analysis
IncludedUser-triggered deep architectural analysis of a codebase or scoped subtree across eight modes — information architecture, data flow, integration points, UI surfaces, interaction patterns, data model, control flow, and failure modes. This skill should be used when the user asks to "diagram this codebase," "map the architecture," "show the data flow," "give me an ERD," "trace control flow," "find the integration points," "verify the layout pattern," "audit the UX architecture," or any similar request whose primary deliverable is mermaid diagrams plus cited reports under docs/architecture/. Dispatches haiku/sonnet sub-agents in parallel for per-mode exploration, then verifies every citation mechanically before any node lands in a diagram. Not for one-off prose explanations of code (use code-explanation) or for high-level system design from scratch (use system-design).
mcp
IncludedModel Context Protocol (MCP) server development and tool management. Languages: Python, TypeScript. Capabilities: build MCP servers, integrate external APIs, discover/execute MCP tools, manage multi-server configs, design agent-centric tools. Actions: create, build, integrate, discover, execute, configure MCP servers/tools. Keywords: MCP, Model Context Protocol, MCP server, MCP tool, stdio transport, SSE transport, tool discovery, resource provider, prompt template, external API integration, Gemini CLI MCP, Claude MCP, agent tools, tool execution, server config. Use when: building MCP servers, integrating external APIs as MCP tools, discovering available MCP tools, executing MCP capabilities, configuring multi-server setups, designing tools for AI agents.
react-native-skia
IncludedDesign, build, debug, and optimise high-polish animated graphics in React Native or Expo using @shopify/react-native-skia, Reanimated, and Gesture Handler. Use when the user wants canvas-driven UI, shaders, paths, rich text, image filters, sprite fields, Skottie, video frames, snapshots, web CanvasKit setup, or performance tuning for custom motion-heavy elements such as loaders, hero art, cards, charts, progress indicators, particle systems, or gesture-driven surfaces. Also use when the user asks for fluid, glow, glass, blob, parallax, 60fps/120fps, or GPU-friendly animated effects in React Native, even if they do not explicitly say "Skia". Do not use for ordinary form/layout work with standard views.
plaid
IncludedProduct Led AI Development — guides founders from idea to launched product. Six capabilities: Idea (discover a product idea), Validate (pressure-test the idea against fatal flaws, problem reality, competition, and 2-week MVP feasibility), Plan (vision intake + document generation), Design (translate image references into a design.md spec), Launch (go-to-market strategy), and Build (roadmap execution). Use when someone says "PLAID", "plaid idea", "help me find an idea", "product idea", "idea from my business", "idea from my expertise", "plaid validate", "validate my idea", "pressure-test", "is this idea good", "find fatal flaws", "validate the problem", "plan a product", "define my vision", "generate a PRD", "product strategy", "plaid design", "design from image", "translate image to design", "create design.md", "extract design tokens", "plaid launch", "go-to-market", "launch plan", "GTM strategy", "launch playbook", "plaid build", "build the app", "start building", or "execute the roadmap".
nextjs-framer-motion-animations
IncludedAdds production-safe Motion for React or Framer Motion animations to Next.js apps, including reveal, hover and tap micro-interactions, whileInView, stagger, AnimatePresence, layout and layoutId transitions, reorder, scroll-linked UI, and lightweight route-content transitions. Use when the user asks to add, refactor, or debug Motion or Framer Motion in App Router or Pages Router codebases, especially around server/client boundaries, reduced motion, LazyMotion, bundle size, hydration, or route transitions. Avoid for GSAP-style timelines, WebGL or 3D scenes, heavy scroll storytelling, or CSS-only effects unless Motion is explicitly requested.