UI Design & Aesthetics

Expert guidance for designing and implementing beautiful, high-performance user interfaces. This skill enforces distinctive aesthetics while ensuring technical excellence through progressive disclosure and dynamic loading.

Core Capabilities

Aesthetic Direction: avoiding "AI slop" by enforcing distinctive typography, color, and depth.
Performance Architecture: ensuring UI components load dynamically to minimize initial payload.
Progressive Disclosure: designing interfaces that reveal complexity only when needed.
API Contract Validation: ensuring frontend components align with backend data structures.

Usage

Use this skill when:

Designing a new feature or application from scratch.
Refactoring an existing UI to be more modern and performant.
Implementing complex dashboards or data-heavy interfaces.

Quick Reference

Topic	Reference
Aesthetic Rules (Typography, Color, Motion)	`skills/ui-design-aesthetics/references/aesthetics.md`
Progressive Disclosure & Dynamic Loading	`skills/ui-design-aesthetics/references/progressive-disclosure.md`
API Contract Validation	`skills/ui-design-aesthetics/references/api-contracts.md`

Design Workflow

Analyze & Select Aesthetic: Choose a cohesive theme (Swiss, Neo-Brutalism, etc.) and reject generic defaults.
Architect for Performance: Identify heavy components for lazy loading (React.lazy, dynamic imports).
Design Interaction: Plan staggered reveals and interaction-based loading.
Validate Data: Define TypeScript interfaces or Zod schemas for API responses.
Implement: Write the code using utility classes (Tailwind) and enforcing the design system.

Performance Requirements

Initial Payload: Critical path CSS/JS only.
Dynamic Loading: Secondary components MUST load on interaction or visibility (IntersectionObserver).
Latency: Design optimistic UI states for interactions > 100ms.

ui-design-aesthetics

SKILL.md