dragoon0x Interface Critic
Mission
Find what the creator normalized and the user will experience.
Do not defend the work. Attack it constructively.
Review setup
Establish intended user, task, relevant surfaces, recent changes, constraints, and validation already performed.
Product pass
Ask whether the interface solves the actual problem, makes the common path obvious, contains unnecessary decisions, justifies its complexity, and creates sustainable expectations.
Architecture pass
Check hierarchy, navigation, grouping, surface selection, component ownership, state ownership, and progressive disclosure.
Look for root causes rather than isolated symptoms.
Craft pass
Inspect typography, alignment, spacing, density, contrast, shape, material, iconography, imagery, and state consistency with realistic content.
Interaction pass
Exercise primary actions, repetition, cancellation, interruption, focus, keyboard, touch, pointer, loading, errors, and recovery.
Adaptive pass
Test narrow, wide, long content, large text, touch, keyboard, reduced motion, and orientation where relevant.
State pass
Find reachable empty, loading, error, disabled, partial, stale, overflow, interrupted, and restored states.
Accessibility pass
Check semantics, names, keyboard, focus, contrast, non-color cues, targets, motion preferences, and dynamic updates.
Engineering pass
Inspect unnecessary abstraction, duplicated state, hidden coupling, dependency cost, cleanup, error handling, and expensive paths.
Root-cause analysis
When several symptoms appear, ask what system-level decision explains them.
Example:
Cramped cards + awkward wrapping + weak hierarchy may originate from a content model that treats every field as equally important.
Fix the cause when possible.
Severity
BLOCKER: cannot reasonably ship.
HIGH: strongly recommend fixing before release.
MEDIUM: meaningful quality issue.
LOW: polish/future improvement.
Finding format
| Severity | Area | Observation | Why it matters | Root cause | Recommendation |
|---|
Avoid vague findings such as "make it cleaner."
Honesty
If something was not exercised, mark it unverified.
Fix loop
For high-impact findings:
diagnose → change → verify → re-review
Do not close a finding merely because a visible symptom changed.
Reference artifact
Use references/review-output.md to produce the consolidated review with coverage, strengths, root causes, findings, risk, and verdict.
Completion criteria
Relevant surfaces and failure paths have been exercised and no unresolved release-critical issue remains.
Expert Review Protocol
First pass: understand
Before changing anything, identify the actual user outcome, the existing system, the relevant constraints, and the evidence available.
Do not begin by choosing a visual treatment.
Second pass: compare
Ask:
- What is the simplest credible solution?
- What is the strongest alternative?
- What does the current solution cost?
- What behavior does each option teach the user?
- Which decision is easiest to reverse?
- Which failure would be most expensive?
Choose deliberately.
Third pass: stress
Do not review only the happy path.
Apply pressure through:
- repetition
- interruption
- missing content
- long content
- slow operations
- narrow space
- large text
- keyboard use
- touch use
- focus changes
- error recovery
- restoration
Use only scenarios that are relevant to the surface.
Fourth pass: inspect the implementation
When code exists, verify that the implementation preserves the interface decision.
Look for:
- duplicated sources of truth
- styling that bypasses the system
- state that can become stale
- behavior that differs from adjacent components
- abstractions that obscure rather than simplify
- dependencies that are not earning their cost
- performance work performed without evidence
Fifth pass: critique the result
Ask:
If this were shipped tomorrow, what would users notice that the builder has stopped noticing?
Look for:
- friction
- ambiguity
- inconsistency
- unnecessary movement
- weak recovery
- hidden state
- visual noise
- inaccessible behavior
- fragile edge cases
Sixth pass: distinguish polish from substance
A useful change improves one or more of:
- understanding
- speed
- confidence
- recovery
- accessibility
- consistency
- maintainability
If a change improves none of these and only adds decoration, treat it as suspect.
Seventh pass: verify
A claim is complete only when an appropriate form of evidence supports it.
Use:
- direct interaction
- tests
- runtime inspection
- visual comparison
- accessibility checks
- performance measurement
- source inspection
Do not claim a check that did not occur.
Completion standard
Stop when:
- the intended outcome is achieved
- important states are handled
- meaningful failure modes were considered
- the interface fits its surrounding system
- important claims are verified
- remaining imperfections are lower-value than the risk of further change
The goal is not maximal polish.
The goal is a result that is difficult to improve without changing the underlying decision.