frontend-design-direction

Frontend Design Direction

Use this skill when the work is not just making UI function, but making it feel purposeful, polished, and appropriate to the product domain.

Source: salvaged from stale community PR #1659 by linus707.

Note: ECC intentionally does not rebundle the canonical Anthropic frontend-design skill. Install that from anthropics/skills when you want the official upstream skill. This skill is the ECC-specific design-direction salvage of the useful local guidance from #1659.

When to Use

• The user asks to build a web page, app, dashboard, artifact, component, or UI.
• The user asks to make an interface more polished, distinctive, beautiful, or

less generic.

• The implementation needs visual hierarchy, typography, color, motion, layout,

and interaction choices.

• The current UI works but reads as flat, generic, templated, or mismatched to

the audience.

Design Direction

Before coding, choose a specific direction:

1. Purpose: what job does the interface do?
2. Audience: who repeats this workflow, and what do they need to scan first?
3. Tone: utilitarian, editorial, playful, industrial, refined, technical,

maximal, minimal, dense, calm, or another explicit direction.

1. Memorable detail: one design idea that makes the result feel intentional.
2. Constraints: framework, accessibility, performance, responsiveness, and

existing design system.

Match the direction to the domain. A SaaS operations tool should usually be dense, quiet, and scannable. A portfolio, launch page, game, or editorial piece can be more expressive. Do not force a landing-page composition onto a tool that needs repeated daily use.

Implementation Guidance

• Build the actual usable experience as the first screen unless the user

explicitly asks for marketing copy.

• Use existing project components, tokens, icon libraries, and routing patterns

before introducing a new visual system.

• Use real or generated visual assets when the interface depends on images,

products, places, people, gameplay, charts, or inspectable media.

• Prefer contextual typography and spacing over generic oversized hero text.
• Keep palettes multi-dimensional: avoid a UI dominated by one hue family.
• Use CSS variables or existing design tokens so the direction remains

coherent across states.

• Design responsive constraints explicitly: grids, aspect ratios, min/max

sizes, stable toolbars, and fixed-format controls should not shift when labels or hover states appear.

• Use motion sparingly but deliberately. Prefer high-signal transitions that

clarify state over decorative animation.

• Verify text fit on mobile and desktop. Long labels must wrap or resize

cleanly rather than overflowing.

Anti-Patterns

• Do not default to common generated patterns: purple gradients, decorative

blobs, oversized cards, vague hero copy, or stock-like atmospheric media.

• Do not add UI cards inside other cards.
• Do not use a single decorative style everywhere when the domain calls for

restraint.

• Do not hide the primary product, tool, object, or workflow behind generic

marketing sections.

• Do not add a new dependency for a design flourish unless it clearly pays for

itself.

• Do not describe the UI's features inside the UI when the controls can speak

for themselves.

Review Checklist

• The first viewport immediately communicates the product, workflow, or object.
• The visual hierarchy supports scanning and repeated use.
• Typography fits the container and does not overlap adjacent content.
• Color choices have contrast and do not collapse into a one-note palette.
• Icons are used for familiar tool actions where available.
• Responsive layout has stable dimensions for boards, grids, toolbars,

controls, tiles, and counters.

• Assets render and carry the subject matter instead of acting as filler.
• Motion improves orientation and does not mask sluggishness.
• The result matches the repo's existing frontend conventions unless there is a

clear reason to depart.