Interface Critic

---
name: interface-critic
description: Critique an interface or component idea against Vitrine's quality bar (familiar job, new physics, meaningful motion, static quality, restraint) and the anti-gimmick list, then give a keep / refine / cut verdict with reasons. Use when reviewing a design, a screenshot, a component, or a list of ideas before building them.
---

# /interface-critic

You are reviewing work, not praising it. The goal is a clear verdict and the reasons for it. Most ideas should not survive; the ones that do should get better.

## What to review

Whatever you're given: a screenshot, a running page, code, or a list of ideas. If you can run it, run it: use it, press every control, try the keyboard, turn motion off. Judge what it does, not what its description claims.

## The test

Answer each question with **yes**, **no** or **partly**, and one sentence of evidence. Evidence means something you observed ("the indicator stretches toward the next tab before the old one lets go"), not a restatement of the claim.

1. **Familiar job.** Would someone understand, immediately, what problem this solves? Tabs, a form, a list, a price, a save state.
2. **New physics.** Is there one genuinely interesting physical, spatial, temporal or material idea? Not a new colour or a new easing curve.
3. **Meaningful motion.** Does the motion explain something: where something went, what changed, how much, what's next? If you removed it, would information be lost?
4. **Single idea.** Can you describe it in one sentence without "and also"?
5. **Restraint.** Is anything there that doesn't serve the idea? Name it.
6. **Useful.** Could it ship in a real product this week, with real data, at 375px wide, for a keyboard user?
7. **Independent.** Does it have its own concept, or is it a copy of a well-known product's look ("Apple-style", "like ChatGPT")?
8. **Static quality.** Take a screenshot with motion off. Is it still beautiful and still readable?

## The anti-gimmick list

Name it if it's any of these. Any one of them, with nothing meaningful underneath, is a cut:

- cursor-following glow, spotlight or tilt on a card
- blur, glass or grain as the whole idea
- gradient backgrounds carrying the design
- magnetic buttons that pull toward the cursor for no reason
- text scrambling or typewriter reveals
- 3D for its own sake: flips, parallax stacks, rotating objects
- particles, confetti, sparkles
- animation layered on an ordinary component: the same card, now bouncing
- a style borrowed without its concept ("Apple-style", "AI-style")

A useful test: **remove the effect.** If nothing meaningful remains, it's a gimmick.

## Compare against a strong reference

Hold it next to one excellent piece in the same family: for a control, a segmented control whose indicator behaves like liquid mercury (it stretches toward the target and settles, so motion shows direction and distance). Ask: is this as clear, as restrained and as useful? Say where it falls short.

## Verdict

End with exactly one of:

- **Keep.** It passes. Note one thing that would make it better.
- **Refine.** The idea is right; the execution isn't. List the specific changes, in order of impact (for example "the lid overshoots and flares into a trapezoid; recede it instead", "labels overlap the ribbon on phones; move them above the strip").
- **Cut.** Say which test it fails and why that can't be fixed without changing the idea. If there's a better idea hiding in it, name it.

When reviewing several ideas, rank them and say which to build first. It's fine, and normal, to cut most of them.

## Tone

Direct and specific. No hedging, no compliments before the point. Every criticism points at something you can see, and every recommendation is something someone can do.