UI/UX Pro Max
Overview
A comprehensive UI/UX design intelligence system that combines visual design expertise with engineering rigor. This skill provides opinionated, production-ready guidance covering style selection, color palettes, typography, UX heuristics, data visualization, and multi-stack implementation. Every recommendation is filtered through a strict priority hierarchy that ensures accessibility and performance are never sacrificed for aesthetics.
Phase 1: Requirements Gathering
- Identify the product type and target audience
- Determine platform(s) (web, mobile, desktop)
- Assess existing brand guidelines or design system
- Define accessibility requirements
- Set performance budgets
STOP — Confirm requirements with user before making design recommendations.
Priority Hierarchy (Non-Negotiable Order)
Do NOT skip or reorder these priorities. Accessibility always comes first.
- Accessibility — WCAG 2.1 AA minimum, AAA preferred
- Contrast ratio: 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text
- Keyboard navigation: all interactive elements focusable, visible focus ring
- ARIA labels on all non-text controls
- Screen reader announcements for dynamic content
- Reduced motion: respect
prefers-reduced-motion
- Touch Targets — 44x44px minimum (Apple HIG / WCAG 2.5.5)
- Spacing between targets: minimum 8px
- Clickable area may exceed visual bounds via padding
- Performance
- Images: WebP with AVIF fallback, lazy loading below fold
- CLS < 0.1, LCP < 2.5s, FID < 100ms
- Font loading:
font-display: swap, preload critical fonts - Bundle: code-split routes, tree-shake unused components
- Style — Applied only after 1-3 are satisfied
- Layout — Composition and spacing applied last
Phase 2: Style Selection
STOP — Present style recommendation with rationale before proceeding to implementation.
Style Selection Decision Table
Style Reference (Key Categories)
Glass and Transparency:
- Glassmorphism:
backdrop-filter: blur(10px), semi-transparent backgrounds, subtle border - Frosted Glass: heavier blur (20px+), lower opacity, works on busy backgrounds
- Acrylic (Fluent Design): noise texture overlay + blur
Minimal and Clean:
- Minimalism: maximum whitespace, single accent color, limited element count
- Swiss Design: grid-based, Helvetica/Grotesk, asymmetric balance
- Japandi: warm neutrals, organic shapes, hidden complexity
Bold and Expressive:
- Brutalism: raw, exposed structure, system fonts, harsh borders, no border-radius
- Neo-Brutalism: brutalism + bright accent colors + drop shadows
- Maximalism: layered textures, mixed fonts, dense information
Depth and Dimension:
- Neumorphism: soft inner/outer shadows on same-color backgrounds
- Material Design 3: elevation tokens, tonal surfaces, dynamic color
- Claymorphism: inflated 3D look, pastel colors, inner shadows
Dark and Moody:
- Dark Mode: OLED-safe (#000 backgrounds), muted primaries, reduced brightness
- Cyberpunk: neon on dark, glitch effects, monospace accents
- Noir: high contrast, grayscale with single accent
Phase 3: Color and Typography
STOP — Present palette and font pairing for approval before building components.
Color Palette Selection Rules
Color Token Rules
- Primary: brand identity color, used for CTAs and key actions
- Secondary: complementary, used for secondary actions and accents
- Neutral: gray scale for text, borders, backgrounds (minimum 9 shades)
- Semantic: success (#22C55E), warning (#F59E0B), error (#EF4444), info (#3B82F6)
- Always define as semantic tokens:
--color-action-primary, not--color-blue-500
Dark Mode Palette Rules
Font Pairings (Top 10)
Typography Scale (Default)
Phase 4: UX Guidelines Application
Navigation Rules
- Primary navigation: maximum 7 items (Miller's Law)
- Current location always indicated (breadcrumb or active state)
- Back button must always work as expected
- Search available on every page for content-heavy apps
Form Rules
- Labels above inputs, never placeholder-only
- Inline validation on blur, not on keystroke
- Error messages: specific, actionable, adjacent to field
- Auto-focus first field on page load
- Submit button disabled until form valid (with explanation)
- Progress indicator for multi-step forms
Feedback Rules
- Loading states for any action > 300ms
- Skeleton screens over spinners for content loading
- Toast notifications: auto-dismiss success (3s), persist errors
- Tap feedback: 80-150ms response time
- Optimistic UI for low-risk actions
Content Layout Rules
- F-pattern for text-heavy pages
- Z-pattern for landing pages
- Above-the-fold: value proposition + primary CTA
- One primary CTA per viewport
Mobile Rules
- Bottom navigation for primary actions (thumb zone)
- Pull-to-refresh for feed content
- Swipe gestures with visual affordance
Phase 5: Implementation
Chart Type Selection Decision Table
Supported Stacks
Design Token Architecture
- Master tokens are read-only defaults
- Overrides are shallow-merged at runtime
- Component tokens reference semantic tokens only
- Never reference primitive tokens in components
Quick Wins Checklist
- No emoji as icons — use Lucide React or Heroicons
- Tap feedback delay: 80-150ms
- Semantic color tokens (not raw hex values)
- 8dp spacing rhythm (4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64)
-
prefers-color-schememedia query for dark mode -
prefers-reduced-motionfor animations -
:focus-visibleinstead of:focusfor keyboard-only focus - Image aspect ratios set to prevent CLS
- Font preloading for above-the-fold text
-
loading="lazy"on below-fold images
Anti-Patterns / Common Mistakes
Integration Points
Skill Type
FLEXIBLE — Follow the priority hierarchy (accessibility > touch > performance > style > layout). Style recommendations adapt to context. Accessibility and performance rules are strongly recommended and should not be deprioritized.
