Interface Ship

Interface Ship

Mission

Decide whether the interface is ready to be trusted by real users.

This is a gate, not a summary.

Release philosophy

A feature is not ready merely because it compiles, looks attractive, passes the happy path, or has been declared done.

It is ready when remaining risk is understood and acceptable.

Intent gate

Verify intended task, requested outcome, common path, acceptance criteria, and scope.

Architecture gate

Verify hierarchy, navigation, surface selection, state ownership, responsive architecture, and progressive disclosure.

Craft gate

Verify typography, spacing, alignment, density, color, material, iconography, imagery, states, and consistency.

Interaction gate

Verify feedback, transitions, motion, interruption, cancellation, loading, errors, recovery, focus, and input modalities.

Adaptation gate

Verify meaningful combinations of space, input, content, text scaling, orientation, and reduced motion.

State gate

Verify reachable important states: empty, loading, success, error, disabled, partial, overflow, stale, interrupted, restored.

Accessibility gate

Verify native semantics, names, keyboard, focus, contrast, non-color cues, target behavior, reduced motion, and dynamic updates.

Performance gate

Use evidence for startup, interaction latency, rendering, memory, network, or storage where relevant. Never invent measurements.

Regression gate

Identify changed components, shared primitives, changed behavior, adjacent flows, and known untouched areas. Test according to coupling and impact.

Evidence language

VERIFIED: direct evidence supports the claim.

PARTIALLY VERIFIED: relevant evidence exists but coverage is incomplete.

UNVERIFIED: not adequately tested.

FAILED: evidence contradicts the requirement.

Never turn "looks fine" into VERIFIED.

Release matrix

Confidence

Do not invent a scientific-looking single score. Report evidence coverage: critical paths tested, important states tested, important contexts tested, known gaps, and unresolved risk.

Never ship

Do not recommend shipping when the primary workflow is broken, critical state is corrupt, important action is inaccessible, a major regression exists, a core requirement is missing, destructive behavior is unsafe, or a release-critical area is entirely unverified.

Verdict

SHIP

Release-critical requirements pass and evidence is sufficient.

SHIP WITH KNOWN LIMITATIONS

No blocker remains, but explicit non-critical limitations or uncertainty remain.

DO NOT SHIP

A release-critical problem exists or essential evidence is missing.

Final report

Verdict

One of the three.

What changed

Brief factual summary.

What was verified

Concrete evidence.

Known limitations

Only real limitations.

Release risk

What remains uncertain and why it is acceptable or blocking.

Reference artifact

Use references/release-report.md to produce the final release report with scope, critical paths, evidence, gaps, risk, and verdict.

Completion criteria

The release decision is backed by evidence and remaining risk is explicit.

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:

1. the intended outcome is achieved
2. important states are handled
3. meaningful failure modes were considered
4. the interface fits its surrounding system
5. important claims are verified
6. 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.