Design & UX

**Created**: 2025-10-21 **Status**: In Progress **Priority**: High **Complexity**: High **Estimated Time**: 8-12 hours ---

Invoke when the user asks about game UI, onboarding, HUD design, controller navigation, player feedback, usability testing, colorblind modes, or game-specific UX patterns. Triggers on: "UI", "UX", "onboarding", "HUD", "controller nav", "usability", "colorblind", "player feedback", "menu design". Do NOT invoke for deep accessibility audits (use game-accessibility-specialist) or art style (use game-art-director). Part of the AlterLab GameForge collection.

Invoke when the user asks about sound design, music direction, audio identity, adaptive audio, spatial audio, SFX, sonic palette, dialogue systems, audio middleware, dynamic music, or sound bible creation. Triggers on: "sound design", "music", "audio", "SFX", "adaptive audio", "spatial audio", "sonic palette", "FMOD", "Wwise", "sound bible". Do NOT invoke for narrative dialogue writing (use game-narrative-director) or creative vision (use game-creative-director). Part of the AlterLab GameForg...

Invoke when the user asks about art style, visual language, style guide, character design, environment art, UI art direction, asset pipeline, reference boards, color palette, or shape language. Triggers on: "art style", "visual", "style guide", "character design", "environment art", "asset pipeline", "color palette", "shape language". Do NOT invoke for UI/UX layout (use game-ux-designer) or creative vision (use game-creative-director). Part of the AlterLab GameForge collection.

Invoke when the user asks about accessibility, inclusive design, colorblind mode, remappable controls, screen reader support, EAA compliance, CVAA, difficulty options, motor accommodations, or one-handed mode. Triggers on: "accessibility", "inclusive design", "colorblind", "remappable controls", "screen reader", "EAA", "CVAA", "difficulty options", "motor accommodation", "one-handed". Do NOT invoke for general UX design (use game-ux-designer) or art direction (use game-art-director). Part of ...

Frontend UI design system selector and implementation guide covering Glassmorphism, Liquid Glass (Apple-style), Neubrutalism, and Claymorphism. Use when building UI components, choosing a visual aesthetic, implementing design tokens, or auditing accessibility/contrast on themed surfaces. Provides per-style tokens, component patterns, dark mode, and a11y constraints.

Create distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces with high design quality. Use this skill when the user asks to build web components, pages, artifacts, posters, or applications (examples include websites, landing pages, dashboards, React components, HTML/CSS layouts, or when styling/beautifying any web UI). Generates creative, polished code and UI design that avoids generic AI aesthetics.

Create beautiful visual art in .png and .pdf documents using design philosophy. You should use this skill when the user asks to create a poster, piece of art, design, or other static piece. Create original visual designs, never copying existing artists' work to avoid copyright violations.

Detect texture-atlas regions and map each source part to its own UV rectangle or projected UV surface. Use when a texture pack must fit a Blender model 1:1, when textures look off/stretched, when alpha decals or lightmaps are provided, or before exporting a textured GLB for a brand mascot/logo.

UI must comply with WCAG 2.2 Level AA, as required by the European Accessibility Act (EN 301 549). Do not deviate without deliberate justification. Disabled UI elements are explicitly exempt from colour contrast requirements. Use when designing, building, or reviewing any user-facing interface for accessibility compliance.

The most important actions and content in a UI should be visually prominent — through size, colour, weight, and position. Visual hierarchy guides the user's eye to what matters most and signals which action is primary. Use when designing button groups, CTAs, dashboards, cards, or any layout where actions or content have different importance levels.

Related features and tasks — such as purchase flows, onboarding, or multi-step configuration — should be designed as natural, guided paths that feel coherent and fit the product hierarchy. Use wizards for complex sequential tasks. Use when designing flows, onboarding, checkout, setup sequences, or any multi-step user journey.

UI density — how much information and how many features appear at once — should match the primary platform and user type. Desktop supports dense, feature-rich interfaces; mobile requires focused, reduced layouts. Enterprise power users tolerate higher density than occasional users. Use when designing data tables, dashboards, toolbars, or adapting a desktop product for mobile.

UI should make it immediately clear where the user is, what context they are operating in, and what their actions will affect. Use lines, regions, colour areas, breadcrumbs, and scope labels to communicate hierarchy and context — especially in deep navigation structures or multi-section layouts.

Sticky and fixed positioning keeps critical UI persistent as the user scrolls — headers at the top, toolbars at the bottom on mobile. Use deliberately: too many fixed layers create visual noise and reduce content area. Use when designing navigation headers, bottom toolbars, floating action buttons, or table column headers.

Keep status and error colours minimal and consistent — too many semantic colours confuse users. Each colour must mean exactly one thing. Errors should be recoverable, large failures must be prevented, and the UI should always give the user a path forward. Use when designing status indicators, error states, form validation, alerts, or any feedback system.

Scroll areas inside a layout should be avoided wherever possible. When unavoidable, allow only one scroll axis at a time and always keep the user in control. Use when designing layouts, data tables, panels, or any component that might introduce an inner scroll container.

Mobile, tablet, and desktop are different interaction paradigms — not the same layout scaled up or down. Sections can be hidden, repositioned, or made sticky on mobile. Navigation and primary actions move. Use when designing responsive layouts, adapting desktop UI for mobile, or deciding what to show on each breakpoint.

UI patterns borrowed from the physical world feel immediately intuitive — cards feel graspable, carousels feel scrollable, drawers feel pullable. Use real-world metaphors deliberately to reduce the learning curve and make interactions feel natural. Use when designing layout patterns, gestures, or navigation paradigms.

When something goes wrong, the user must be able to recover or try again. Toasts, inline errors, banners, and notification patterns each have a specific role. Use when designing error states, success confirmations, async feedback, in-place editing, or any system that communicates state changes to the user.

UI design and review should apply Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics — the foundational principles for evaluating and improving usability. Use when auditing an interface, designing interaction flows, writing error messages, or reviewing any UI for usability issues.

Disney's 12 animation principles, cinematic storytelling techniques, and comic book conventions apply to web UI — used subtly, they make interfaces feel alive, intentional, and emotionally resonant. Use when designing transitions, micro-interactions, onboarding flows, scroll animations, or any motion in the UI.

Micro-interactions are small, purposeful animations and responses that reward the user and make the interface feel alive — an animated icon, a satisfying toggle, a subtle reveal. Borrowed from the natural world, they add delight without distraction. Use when designing interactive components, success states, toggles, loaders, or any moment worth celebrating.

Manage user expectations during wait times with appropriate loading states — from simple spinners to complex skeleton screens and staggered animations. Perceived performance is often more important than actual load time. Use when designing data-heavy components, handling API calls, building hero sections, or improving the feel of a slow interface.