# Visual Direction Review

> Critique whether a design holds together — cohesion, hierarchy, rhythm, and emotional consistency — and say whether it reads as intentional. Use when a page technically works but feels generic, incoherent, or off-tone, and when judging a design against its stated direction.

- Skill: `10xequity/visual-direction-review` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add 10xequity/visual-direction-review`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/10xequity/visual-direction-review/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: 10xequity (https://skillmd.com/u/10xequity)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/10xequity/visual-direction-review

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# Visual Direction Review Skill

## Purpose
Judge whether a design holds together: cohesion, hierarchy, rhythm, and emotional consistency with its stated direction.

## When to use
Use this skill when a page works technically but feels generic, incoherent, or off-tone, and when reviewing work against the direction it claimed. Use `impeccable-ui.md` to fix craft defects and `web-design-guidelines.md` for conformance rules; this skill judges whether the whole reads as intentional.

## Inputs
- the page, screen, or flow under review, ideally as a rendered screenshot
- the stated design direction or brand, if one exists
- the audience and what the design is meant to make them feel
- what the surrounding work looks like, for consistency

## Output
Return:
- a one-line verdict: does this read as designed, or as assembled
- findings under cohesion, hierarchy, rhythm, and emotional consistency
- for each, the specific evidence, not an impression
- the single highest-leverage change, named first
- what is working and must be preserved through any revision

## Constraints
- judge against the stated direction; a design that succeeds at a direction you dislike is a success
- **Cohesion** — do type, colour, spacing, and shape read as one system, or as parts from different projects
- **Hierarchy** — does the eye reach the primary element first; does anything secondary outweigh it
- **Rhythm** — is the spacing scale felt as a pattern; does vertical rhythm break where sections meet
- **Emotional consistency** — does the tone hold across hero, body, empty states, errors, and footer, or does it decay into neutral defaults
- name the specific element for every finding; "feels cluttered" is not a finding
- distinguish direction failures from execution failures — the fixes are completely different
- if the design has no discernible point of view, say that plainly rather than listing small corrections
- limit to the few findings that would change the design; a long list reads as noise

## Examples
- Review whether a landing page delivers the editorial direction it committed to
- Judge why a redesign feels less distinctive than the version it replaced
- Check tone consistency across a product's onboarding, empty, and error states