Product design process

The router for the whole collection. It decides which phase the work is in, loads the skill for that phase, runs the reviewer that checks it, and records each decision so the next phase starts from what was learned instead of from scratch. It does not do the phase work itself.

When to use

• A new feature, product, or redesign with no clear starting point
• Work that crosses phases ("research this, then design it, then build it")
• Picking the work back up after a break and needing to know what comes next
• Planning a design effort's steps and timeline

Not for: one bounded task ("critique this screen", "make motion tokens"). Load that skill directly.

Inputs

• The ask, in the requester's words
• What already exists: research, briefs, designs, a design system, code. Read the repo's AGENTS.md, plans/ or docs/, and any Figma links before proposing work. [Assume nothing exists.]
• Appetite: how much time this deserves (a day, a week, six weeks). [One week.]
• Fidelity needed at the end: a decision, a prototype, shipped code. [Shipped code.]

Process

1. Place the work. Use the phase map below to decide where the work starts. Most requests arrive in the middle: "design a settings page" is phase 3 with phase 1 and 2 questions still open. Name the skipped phases and the risk of skipping each in one line.
2. Open a project log. Model: templates/project-log.md. Copy that shape. Keep it in the repo (plans/NNN-<name>.md if the repo has a plans/ folder, otherwise docs/design/<name>.md).
3. Run each phase. Load the phase's skill, produce its output, then run its exit check (below). Record the decision and the evidence in the log before moving on.
4. Size to the appetite. With a day, run phase 1 as a 30-minute framing pass and phase 4 as a design-critic pass. With six weeks, run every phase fully. Never drop Verify.
5. Loop back when evidence says so. A usability finding with severity 3 or 4 sends the work back to phase 3. A finding that the problem was wrong sends it back to phase 1. Record the loop and why.
6. Close. Ship, write the changelog line, and, if the work is portfolio-worthy, hand the log to design-case-study while it is fresh.

Phase map

Brand, motion, and marketing run alongside the phases, not in sequence:

Reviewers

Read-only subagents in agents/. Each reports failures only and ends in a verdict. Run them at the exit of the phase they guard, and run them again after fixes.

Standards

• Every phase ends with a written decision and the evidence behind it. A phase with no record did not happen.
• Explore at least three genuinely different directions before converging, at whatever fidelity the appetite allows.
• Carry the brief's success metrics through to the end; phase 7 measures them.
• If the project has a design system, new work uses it. New parts go through phase 5 before phase 6, not after.
• If the project has an AGENTS.md, its conventions win over any skill here.

Output

The project log, filled in as the work moves, plus each phase's deliverable. At any point, the log answers: where are we, what was decided, why, and what is next.

Verify

The effort is done when:

• Every phase that ran has a decision and evidence in the log
• Every skipped phase is named with its accepted risk
• All reviewer verdicts for the phases that ran read ready
• The shipped result was checked in light and dark, by keyboard, with reduced motion on, and at 320px and 1440px
• The brief's success metrics have a date when they will be measured

Anti-patterns

• Jumping to high fidelity on day one because the tool makes it easy
• Research that produces a deck and no decision
• One direction presented as if it were the only option
• A design system built before two real screens needed the same part
• Treating accessibility and QA as phase 7 cleanup
• A case study written from memory months later

Related skills

Every skill in the collection. This one only routes.

References

• REFERENCE-BANK.md: Nielsen Norman Group for method choice at each phase; Laws of UX for the principles phase 3 leans on.
• FIBO.md: Fibo's plans/ folder is the model for the project log (numbered, four questions, kept after shipping), and its definition of done is the model for phase 6's exit check.