---
name: product-design-and-ux
description: >-
  Define user-facing product behavior from validated evidence and approved scope. Use for
  information architecture, task flows, state and recovery models, interface contracts,
  usability-study plans, interaction-pattern tradeoffs, or engineering UX handoffs. Use
  after product discovery and product decisions; route WCAG/ARIA conformance work to
  web-accessibility and formal software specifications to spec-driven-development. Do not
  use this skill for unrelated requests; route to the nearest named specialist.
license: MIT
compatibility: Works with any agent framework supporting the Agent Skills format; no design tool, frontend framework, or proprietary service required.
---

# Product Design and UX

Turn validated evidence and chosen scope into observable behavior people can complete and recover from. Design the interaction, not the brand, pixels, CSS, component implementation, or a particular tool.

## Entry Check

Confirm the approved scope, outcome, users or roles, evidence links, constraints, measurable experience goals, and open product decisions. Record missing inputs rather than inventing them.

- Need stakeholder evidence, validation, or raw research? Use [product-discovery](../product-discovery/SKILL.md).
- Need prioritization, scope, or why a feature is being built? Use [product-methodology](../product-methodology/SKILL.md).
- Need WCAG, ARIA, native semantics, or accessibility testing depth? Use [web-accessibility](../web-accessibility/SKILL.md).
- Need an approved interaction contract translated into a software specification and delivery gates? Use [spec-driven-development](../spec-driven-development/SKILL.md).

## Workflow

1. Trace each outcome and design decision to evidence with `templates/outcomes-to-design.md`. Optional personas or jobs must change a decision and cite evidence; do not create decorative demographics.
2. Establish information architecture from goals, content objects, terminology, permissions, findability, and service context. Read `references/information-architecture.md`.
3. Define consequential labels, instructions, status, errors, and completion content; review the task's memory, choice, switching, interruption, and recovery demands. Use heuristics to generate testable questions, not verdicts. Read `references/content-and-cognitive-demand.md`.
4. Model important tasks, including forces that create decisions, alternatives, interruption, re-entry, cancellation, recovery, irreversible actions, side effects, permission changes, and completion evidence. Read `references/task-flows-and-state-models.md` and use `templates/task-flow-state-model.md`.
5. Inventory only states forced by the flow, data, permissions, connectivity, and risk. Record risky omissions. Use `templates/screen-state-inventory.md`.
6. Write framework-neutral contracts for content, controls, accessible interaction requirements, actions, transitions, persistence, permissions, responsive/reflow behavior, telemetry, and open decisions. Read `references/interface-contracts-and-responsive-behavior.md` and use `templates/interface-contract.md`.
7. Treat patterns as hypotheses. Compare alternatives, tradeoffs, evidence, and disconfirming conditions with `references/interaction-pattern-selection.md`.
8. Plan or synthesize only authorized usability work. Read `references/usability-testing-and-privacy.md`; use `templates/usability-study.md`. Never invent participants, consent, observations, quotes, or results.
9. Produce an engineering handoff with observable acceptance evidence, dependencies, owners, gates, and deployed-boundary verification. Read `references/engineering-handoff.md`; use `templates/engineering-handoff.md`. Hand approved behavior to [spec-driven-development](../spec-driven-development/SKILL.md).

## Load On Demand

| Need | Load |
|---|---|
| Scope boundary, traceability, or adjacent-skill routing | `references/boundaries-and-traceability.md` |
| Goals, labels, navigation, findability, permissions | `references/information-architecture.md` |
| Plain-language content, heuristic review, cognitive demand | `references/content-and-cognitive-demand.md` |
| Task paths, state applicability, recovery, side effects | `references/task-flows-and-state-models.md` |
| Interaction contract or inclusive responsive behavior | `references/interface-contracts-and-responsive-behavior.md` |
| Pattern alternatives and decision evidence | `references/interaction-pattern-selection.md` |
| Usability protocol, synthesis, consent, or privacy | `references/usability-testing-and-privacy.md` |
| Handoff, acceptance criteria, or deployed verification | `references/engineering-handoff.md` |
| Methodology self-check with synthetic fixtures | `references/scenario-probes.md` |
| Source authority, status, and examples | `references/source-index.md` |

## Guardrails

- Accessibility is designed throughout, but WCAG/ARIA/native-semantics and testing depth remain with `web-accessibility`.
- Specify behavior under relevant width, zoom/reflow, text expansion/localization, orientation, input modes, reduced motion, degraded connectivity, interruption, and re-entry. Do not use device breakpoints as the model.
- Use synthetic fixtures such as `sample-user@example.test` and `INV-DEMO-042`; never request real credentials, payments, financial access, or secrets for an unsafe prototype.
- A finding from usability work is bounded evidence, not accessibility conformance, population prevalence, analytics, or outcome proof.

## Completion

Stop when every in-scope behavior has traceable evidence, an applicable state/recovery model, observable acceptance criteria, and either a resolved decision or an owner and resolution gate. Report limitations and untested risks rather than filling gaps with assumptions.