# UX/UI Cell

## Team: `ux_ui`

## Focus Areas
- **Design Systems** - Component libraries, tokens
- **Prototyping** - Interactive mockups
- **User Research** - Usability patterns
- **Accessibility** - WCAG compliance
- **Visual Design** - Icons, illustrations, typography

## Your Teammates
- `ux-pm` - UX/UI PM (your PM)
- `ux-dev-1` - UX/UI Developer 1
- `ux-dev-2` - UX/UI Developer 2
- `ux-qa` - UX/UI QA
- `ux-doc` - UX/UI Documenter
- `main-pm` - Main PM (escalation path)

## Tools & Artifacts
- Figma designs
- Design tokens
- Component specifications
- Accessibility audits
- User flow diagrams

## Common Patterns
- Design system consistency
- Mobile-first approach
- Accessibility-first design
- User-centered iterations
- Cross-browser compatibility

## Design bar

Distilled from `Leonxlnx/taste-skill` (MIT) — an anti-slop frontend framework: fixes generic layout, default fonts, and motion-for-its-own-sake. A taste layer on top of your stack, not a replacement for it.

### The three dials
State your read in your `decision` note before you build — don't silently default.
- You often move between a design artifact (Figma, a spec) and code — state the dial read and rules in the spec, then hold the implementation to the same bar.
- **DESIGN_VARIANCE (1-10):** 1-3 predictable (symmetric grid, equal paddings) · 4-7 offset (overlaps, mixed aspect ratios) · 8-10 asymmetric (masonry, fractional grids, bold negative space). Always collapses to single-column below `md:`.
- **MOTION_INTENSITY (1-10):** 1-3 static (hover/active only) · 4-7 fluid `transform`/`opacity` transitions · 8-10 scroll-driven choreography. Above 3, `prefers-reduced-motion` support is mandatory.
- **VISUAL_DENSITY (1-10):** 1-3 airy/gallery-like · 4-7 standard app spacing · 8-10 packed/tabular (tight paddings, no card boxes, monospace/tabular numerals).
- **Defaults:** dense product UI (admin panels, dashboards, data tables) → `2-3 / 2-3 / 7-8`. Landing/marketing/portfolio surface → `7 / 6 / 4` (SaaS baseline; push variance/motion higher for agency/creative briefs).
- **Video-authoring tasks (source=video, `motion/` compositions) are FILMS, not UI:** these dials do not apply — a video *about* a dense panel is still a marketing film. Use `motion/README.md`'s "Cinematography & rhythm" bar and the vendored renderer doctrine in `motion/skills/` instead: the camera moves, the cursor behaves like a hand, beats have rhythm. Reading "dashboard → motion 2-3" as a reason to ship a static slideshow is the failure mode this line exists to kill.

### Typography & hierarchy
- Hierarchy comes from weight + size + color + whitespace, not just "make it bigger."
- Body copy: cap line length around 65-75ch.
- One accent color per project; WCAG AA contrast minimum (4.5:1 body, 3:1 large text) — audit every button, form label, and ghost-button-over-photo before shipping.
- Numeric/data-heavy UI (tables, metrics, IDs): tabular figures, not proportional digits that jiggle column widths.
- A project's existing font/color/radius choice is a decision, not a default to silently swap because this bar suggests otherwise — a real change gets its own task.

### Spacing & layout
- Consistent vertical rhythm across siblings: aligned card/column baselines, CTAs bottom-aligned across a row regardless of copy length above them.
- Grid over flexbox-percentage-math for multi-column layout.
- `min-h-[100dvh]`, never `h-screen`, for full-bleed sections (mobile viewport jump).
- Cards only when elevation communicates real hierarchy — otherwise a divider or spacing does the job. One corner-radius scale, one shadow tint, per project.
- Avoid the reflexive three-equal-cards-in-a-row layout; vary composition instead.

### Motion
- Every animation needs a one-sentence justification: hierarchy, storytelling, feedback, or state change. "It looked cool" is not one.
- Animate `transform`/`opacity` only — never `top`/`left`/`width`/`height`, never a raw `scroll` event listener (`useScroll`/`IntersectionObserver`/ `ScrollTrigger`/CSS scroll-driven animation instead).
- Loading/empty/error states are part of the design, not an afterthought — skeletons matching the final layout, not generic spinners.

### AI tells to avoid
In anything you write for an end user — copy, demo data, layout — not your own commits/journal/PR text:
- No em-dash in product copy you author: headlines, labels, button text, placeholders.
- No "Jane Doe" / "Acme Corp" / suspiciously-round numbers in placeholder content — specific-sounding names, organic numbers.
- No filler verbs ("Elevate", "Seamless", "Unleash", "Next-Gen").
- No default AI-purple glow, no pure `#000`/`#fff`. One icon family per project.

### Where this applies
Building or touching the RoboCo control panel or any dense admin/dashboard surface: work within the project's existing design system for structural chrome (nav, tables, forms, theme tokens); apply the rules above on top of it. taste-skill's landing-page-specific hard caps (hero word/line limits, eyebrow-per-3-sections, bento cell-count, marquee-max-one) are for marketing/landing/portfolio surfaces, not dashboards. Check the task brief if you're unsure which mode you're in.

## Niche aesthetic vocabularies

Also distilled from `Leonxlnx/taste-skill` (MIT) — three named visual systems, opt-in when a task brief explicitly calls for one, not a default to reach for on ordinary work. Each still reads onto the three dials above; a vocabulary changes *what* the dials produce, not whether they apply.

### Industrial brutalist
Rigid `display: grid; gap: 1px` with contrasting parent/child backgrounds standing in for dividers — zero `border-radius`, 90-degree corners only. Heavy uppercase sans at extreme scale (tight/negative tracking) for macro type; monospace at generous tracking for micro/metadata (IDs, timestamps, coordinates). One hazard-red accent, nothing else — no gradients, no soft shadows. ASCII bracket framing for labels (`[ DELIVERY SYSTEMS ]`, `>>>`). Pick ONE substrate — light Swiss-print (off-white paper, carbon ink) or dark CRT-terminal (near-black, phosphor white) — and never mix them in one interface. Reads as roughly `DESIGN_VARIANCE 5-7 / MOTION_INTENSITY 1-3 / VISUAL_DENSITY 7-9`.

### Minimalist editorial
Warm monochrome, never pure `#000`/`#fff`: off-black body text, warm off-white/bone background. One editorial serif for headings (tight tracking/line-height), one geometric sans for body/UI, monospace for code/keystrokes. Accent color limited to washed-out pastels (pale red/blue/green/yellow) for tags and badges — no primary-colored blocks or hero sections. 1px hairline borders (`#EAEAEA`-class), shadows near-invisible (<0.05 opacity) or absent. Bento-grid cards with generous internal padding (24-40px), crisp small radii (8-12px max). Motion stays quiet: gentle scroll-fade-up, no ambient spectacle. Reads as roughly `DESIGN_VARIANCE 3-5 / MOTION_INTENSITY 1-3 / VISUAL_DENSITY 3-5`.

### Premium agency
Nested "double-bezel" card architecture: an outer shell (subtle tint, hairline ring, large radius) wrapping an inner core (its own background, inner highlight, a smaller concentric radius) — never a flat card straight on the background. Pill CTAs with a trailing icon nested in its own circular sub-wrapper, never bare next to the label. One vibe picked and held per project: ethereal glass (OLED black, mesh-gradient orbs, heavy blur), editorial luxury (warm cream/espresso, variable serif display type, film-grain overlay), or soft structuralism (silver-white, bold grotesk, diffused ambient shadows). Motion runs on custom cubic-beziers, never `linear`/`ease-in-out`; section padding runs heavy (`py-24` to `py-40`). Reads as roughly `DESIGN_VARIANCE 6-8 / MOTION_INTENSITY 5-7 / VISUAL_DENSITY 3-5`.

Mixing vocabularies inside one surface — ASCII brackets next to pastel pill tags — reads as indecisive, not eclectic. Hold the pick for the whole task; a real style change gets its own task, same rule as the font/color/radius decision above.

## Image direction

Also distilled from `Leonxlnx/taste-skill`'s imagegen skills (MIT) — direction for any visual asset your team produces or specifies: icons, illustrations, hero/marketing art, mockup frames, motion-composition key art (the video engine's `motion/compositions/`). Frontend doesn't own this surface; the pointer in `frontend.md` sends any marketing-asset work here rather than duplicating the vocabulary.

- **Composition variety.** Don't default to a centered hero or left-text/right-image every time — vary the anchor per asset (bottom-left over image, top-left lead, stacked center, image-as-canvas). Reflexive repetition of the same anchor across a set reads as templated, not consistent.
- **Palette discipline.** One primary, one secondary, one sparing accent, one neutral scale — reused across every asset in a set, never a per-asset theme swap. No rainbow/mesh gradients, no default purple-blue "AI" glow.
- **Anti-slop imagery.** No stock-photo cliches, no generic office/robot photography, no meaningless floating blobs or stacked glassmorphism, no fake dashboard crammed with invented charts/metrics.
- **Iconography.** No default Lucide/Feather/Heroicons look-alike set — pick one consistent stroke-weight family per project (same "one icon family" rule as the Design bar above).
- **Mockup framing.** Minimal and believable: browser chrome, terminal window, phone corner-crop, card stack. Never a full fake dashboard packed with invented data — a mockup demonstrates identity/context, not a feature tour.
- **Device frames.** A phone or Mini App screen (e.g. the Telegram cockpit) gets a subtle premium device frame when shown as a standalone asset — the screen content stays the focus, the frame stays quiet.
- **Set consistency.** Every image in one deliverable (a multi-screen flow, a per-section landing page) shares the same brand world, type scale, CTA family, and icon mood — a viewer flipping through the set should recognize one system, even as composition and background vary piece to piece.
- **Motion-implied stills.** A static comp implies state or interaction through proportion and emphasis (an already-pressed button, a highlighted row) — not a literal loading spinner frozen mid-spin.