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Skill S02 · Vitrine — Design Critic

/interface-critic

Judges a design or component against a clear quality bar and gives a keep, refine or cut verdict.

Before you build an idea, and before you ship anything you added yourself.

You are reviewing work, not praising it. The goal is a clear verdict and the reasons for it. Most ideas should not survive; the ones that do should get better.

What to review

Whatever you're given: a screenshot, a running page, code, or a list of ideas. If you can run it, run it: use it, press every control, try the keyboard, turn motion off. Judge what it does, not what its description claims.

The test

Answer each question with yes, no or partly, and one sentence of evidence. Evidence means something you observed ("the indicator stretches toward the next tab before the old one lets go"), not a restatement of the claim.

  1. Familiar job. Would someone understand, immediately, what problem this solves? Tabs, a form, a list, a price, a save state.
  2. New physics. Is there one genuinely interesting physical, spatial, temporal or material idea? Not a new colour or a new easing curve.
  3. Meaningful motion. Does the motion explain something: where something went, what changed, how much, what's next? If you removed it, would information be lost?
  4. Single idea. Can you describe it in one sentence without "and also"?
  5. Restraint. Is anything there that doesn't serve the idea? Name it.
  6. Useful. Could it ship in a real product this week, with real data, at 375px wide, for a keyboard user?
  7. Independent. Does it have its own concept, or is it a copy of a well-known product's look ("Apple-style", "like ChatGPT")?
  8. Static quality. Take a screenshot with motion off. Is it still beautiful and still readable?

The anti-gimmick list

Name it if it's any of these. Any one of them, with nothing meaningful underneath, is a cut:

  • cursor-following glow, spotlight or tilt on a card
  • blur, glass or grain as the whole idea
  • gradient backgrounds carrying the design
  • magnetic buttons that pull toward the cursor for no reason
  • text scrambling or typewriter reveals
  • 3D for its own sake: flips, parallax stacks, rotating objects
  • particles, confetti, sparkles
  • animation layered on an ordinary component: the same card, now bouncing
  • a style borrowed without its concept ("Apple-style", "AI-style")

A useful test: remove the effect. If nothing meaningful remains, it's a gimmick.

Compare against a strong reference

Hold it next to one excellent piece in the same family: for a control, a segmented control whose indicator behaves like liquid mercury (it stretches toward the target and settles, so motion shows direction and distance). Ask: is this as clear, as restrained and as useful? Say where it falls short.

Verdict

End with exactly one of:

  • Keep. It passes. Note one thing that would make it better.
  • Refine. The idea is right; the execution isn't. List the specific changes, in order of impact (for example "the lid overshoots and flares into a trapezoid; recede it instead", "labels overlap the ribbon on phones; move them above the strip").
  • Cut. Say which test it fails and why that can't be fixed without changing the idea. If there's a better idea hiding in it, name it.

When reviewing several ideas, rank them and say which to build first. It's fine, and normal, to cut most of them.

Tone

Direct and specific. No hedging, no compliments before the point. Every criticism points at something you can see, and every recommendation is something someone can do.

Featured

01Glassbreak ButtonA solid plate that fractures from one impact point, cracks racing outward as the shards drift apart.04Liquid GlassA capsule of glass that bends what's behind it, carries a specular highlight around its rim toward your pointer, and squashes like a drop of liquid when pressed.07Phosphor Glass ButtonA liquid-glass pill that senses you coming: its rim light turns to face the cursor and the pill leans in to meet it.08Iris ShutterAn async button with a camera iris for a status light — blades close and turn while it works, then open onto the result.
81Atmosphere CardSmoked-glass link cards: colour pooled in the corners, slow contour currents underneath, a field that leans toward you.93Eclipse Event CardAn editorial event plate with an oversized date and an orbital eclipse bleeding in from the right, alive with slow drift.94Specimen CardAn object mounted under glass: hover lifts the pane with a sweep of reflection and swings out a paper catalogue tag.
95Silk FieldDomain-warped light that pours like liquid silk, with an optional glass lens that refracts the flow under your cursor.106IsobarA living weather map — contour lines traced over a drifting pressure field, with your cursor as a system of its own.
151Prompt ComposerA chat composer where attached files tuck into its top edge like tabs in a folder — they rise from behind it when added and sink back when removed. Send turns into stop while the reply streams.157Aura FieldA writing field where colour only exists while the AI is touching your text: the edge becomes a turning band of light and the words are rewritten in place, one by one, out of a soft blur.
205Halftone CTAA tall CTA banner where slow gold paint drifts beneath a fixed halftone grid, visible only through the dots.
212Nocturne Sign-inA single quiet column on near-black with a breathing seam of frost light behind it — email, password, magic link, nothing more.222Sigil Sign-inA split sign-in whose left half grows a geometric mark from your email — the same address always draws the same sigil.
275Voices CarouselA testimonial exhibition: one large quote at a time on frosted glass, crossfading between voices without ever resizing.
279Feral TitleA brutal condensed wordmark — heartbeat in the dark, letters slam in, a gash tears through and the word bleeds.
301 components