Reduce Cognitive Load
Use this skill when a person has to understand, remember, compare, or complete too much at once. It applies to UI flows, forms, checkout, settings, dashboards, slide narratives, PDF explainers, diagrams, reports, and instructions.
Workflow
- Identify the user's immediate goal and the mental work required to reach it.
- Read
references/principles.md when the task involves multi-step flows, dense options, memory burden, confusing processes, complex explanations, or too many simultaneous decisions.
- Map the load: what the user must notice, understand, remember, decide, and do.
- Reduce unnecessary load with chunking, visible context, recognition cues, defaults, progressive disclosure, and fewer simultaneous choices.
- Pair with execution skills as needed:
frontend-design/react for UI, presentations for decks, documents for PDF/DOCX, spreadsheets for tables, imagegen for visual explanations, or figma for design files.
Output Expectations
Return a simpler information or interaction model: fewer simultaneous demands, clearer steps, visible context, and recognition-based cues. State what should be removed, grouped, deferred, automated, or made visible.
Boundaries
Do not use this skill for broad onboarding strategy unless the main issue is mental-model formation; use design-onboarding-mental-model for first-use explanation. Use simplify-decisions-recovery when choice architecture or error recovery is the central problem.
1---2name: reduce-cognitive-load3description: Reduce cognitive load across interfaces, presentations, PDFs, documents, diagrams, workflows, forms, dashboards, onboarding materials, and visual explanations. Use when Codex needs to simplify complexity, chunk information, reduce memory burden, replace recall with recognition, clarify steps, manage progressive disclosure, or make a process easier to understand and complete.4---56# Reduce Cognitive Load78Use this skill when a person has to understand, remember, compare, or complete too much at once. It applies to UI flows, forms, checkout, settings, dashboards, slide narratives, PDF explainers, diagrams, reports, and instructions.910## Workflow11121. Identify the user's immediate goal and the mental work required to reach it.132. Read `references/principles.md` when the task involves multi-step flows, dense options, memory burden, confusing processes, complex explanations, or too many simultaneous decisions.143. Map the load: what the user must notice, understand, remember, decide, and do.154. Reduce unnecessary load with chunking, visible context, recognition cues, defaults, progressive disclosure, and fewer simultaneous choices.165. Pair with execution skills as needed: `frontend-design`/`react` for UI, `presentations` for decks, `documents` for PDF/DOCX, `spreadsheets` for tables, `imagegen` for visual explanations, or `figma` for design files.1718## Output Expectations1920Return a simpler information or interaction model: fewer simultaneous demands, clearer steps, visible context, and recognition-based cues. State what should be removed, grouped, deferred, automated, or made visible.2122## Boundaries2324Do not use this skill for broad onboarding strategy unless the main issue is mental-model formation; use `design-onboarding-mental-model` for first-use explanation. Use `simplify-decisions-recovery` when choice architecture or error recovery is the central problem.
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