Skill Modern UI Patterns

Skill Modern UI Patterns

Use this skill when building or improving operational SaaS screens. Favor product clarity, compact density, accessibility, and maintainable components over decorative novelty.

Impeccable Product Vocabulary

Use Impeccable as a design-thinking layer, not as a replacement for the existing component system:

• Start from product context: audience, task, product voice, and visual defaults to avoid. Reuse PRODUCT.md and DESIGN.md when present.
• For new work, use shape (brief) -> craft (implementation) -> critique (design review) -> polish (final refinement). For existing work, begin with critique or a named pass such as typeset, layout, colorize, quieter, or bolder.
• Separate product mode from brand mode: dashboards and admin screens need semantic states, repeatable components, and fluent density; landing pages can carry stronger type, imagery, and brand expression.
• Prefer purposeful hierarchy and restraint over AI-default decoration. Avoid generic gradients, excessive roundness, glass cards, nested cards, oversized icon containers, repetitive section kickers, and a single undifferentiated font unless the design system has a reason for them.
• Finish with audit and harden when the change affects production UI, then verify realistic content, responsive states, accessibility, and existing analytics.

Symptom Routing

• Generic or interchangeable -> critique, distill, then bolder or shape.
• Busy or overdecorated -> quieter, distill, and remove redundant copy or containers.
• Broken on small screens -> adapt, layout, and harden with long localized values.
• Hard to scan -> typeset, layout, and strengthen primary-action hierarchy.

Workflow

1. Reuse the app shell, component library, tokens, icons, form helpers, table patterns, and data-loading conventions already in the repository.
2. Identify the screen type: dashboard, list/table, detail page, form, settings, billing, onboarding, support/admin, or reporting.
3. Map the core workflow: scan, filter, compare, act, confirm, recover. Design the UI around that sequence.
4. Implement with stable structure: predictable grid tracks, constrained widths, consistent spacing, and responsive state transitions.
5. Add complete states for data and interaction: skeleton/loading, empty, no results, partial error, permission denied, saving, saved, validation error, and destructive confirmation.
6. Verify the result in mobile, tablet, and desktop viewports before claiming completion.

Dashboard Patterns

• Put the page title, freshness indicator, primary action, and key filters near the top.
• Use metric cards only for decision-making numbers; include trend, period, source, or caveat when ambiguity would cause rework.
• Prefer one strong chart or table cluster over many small decorative cards.
• Keep chart legends, tooltips, and empty states readable at small widths.
• Use clear units and formatting: currency, dates, rates, counts, percentages, latency, and quota.
• Make drill-down paths obvious through row clicks, detail drawers, segmented controls, or tabs.

Component Patterns

• Use icon buttons for common compact tools: edit, delete, copy, refresh, export, filter, search, sort, expand, collapse, undo, redo, close.
• Use text or icon-plus-text buttons for commands whose consequence must be explicit.
• Keep cards shallow. Do not place page sections inside floating cards or nest cards inside cards.
• Use drawers for contextual detail, modals for blocking decisions, popovers for lightweight controls, and pages for durable workflows.
• Keep destructive actions confirmable and auditable. Show what will be affected.
• Preserve existing analytics, URLs, form semantics, and keyboard behavior while refactoring UI.

Forms And Tables

• Put validation near the field, summarize submission failures, and preserve user input after errors.
• Mark required fields using the project convention and provide examples for ambiguous values.
• Keep table headers, row actions, sorting, filtering, pagination, and bulk selection consistent with existing screens.
• Provide empty states with one clear next action when action is possible; otherwise explain the missing prerequisite briefly.
• For wide tables, prioritize columns, provide column visibility or detail expansion when feasible, and avoid hiding primary identifiers.

Professional Finish

• Keep palettes balanced; avoid one-note purple/blue, beige, slate, or brown themes unless the product already uses them.
• Use typography hierarchy appropriate to the surface. Do not use hero-scale text inside dashboards, cards, or sidebars.
• Keep copy specific, spelled correctly, and free of mojibake.
• Verify contrast, focus states, disabled states, truncation, wrapping, and icon alignment.
• Do not add new UI dependencies unless they solve a concrete gap and match the existing stack.

Done Criteria

• The UI supports the main workflow without explanation text.
• Layout remains stable with realistic data and long labels.
• Loading, empty, error, and success states are implemented where relevant.
• Responsive behavior is verified.
• Lint, typecheck, build, or targeted tests run when available.