Plan Design Review

What Is This?

Overview

Plan Design Review is a structured design critique workflow that evaluates UI/UX plans before implementation begins. Acting like a combined CEO and engineering review session, it applies a designer's eye to assess each dimension of a proposed interface or experience, rates them on a scale of 0 to 10, explains what a perfect score would require, and then revises the plan to close that gap. This process runs in plan mode, meaning it operates on design specifications and architectural decisions rather than live rendered output.

The skill is part of the garrytan/gstack toolkit and is designed to catch design weaknesses early, when changes are inexpensive. Rather than discovering layout problems, unclear information hierarchies, or poor interaction patterns after code has been written, Plan Design Review surfaces these issues at the planning stage. Each design dimension receives a score, a rationale, and a concrete improvement path, giving developers and designers a clear action list before a single line of frontend code is committed.

This workflow complements the separate /design-review command, which handles live site visual audits on rendered pages. Plan Design Review focuses exclusively on the plan itself, making it the right tool to run before implementation rather than after.

Who Should Use This

• Frontend developers who produce UI/UX plans and want structured feedback before writing component code
• Product managers who need to validate interface plans against usability and clarity standards
• Full-stack engineers working on projects where design quality directly affects user retention or conversion
• Technical leads conducting pre-implementation reviews who want a repeatable, scored evaluation framework
• Designers collaborating with engineering teams who need a shared vocabulary for critiquing plans objectively
• Solo developers building consumer-facing products who lack a dedicated design reviewer on their team

Why Use It?

Problems It Solves

• Design flaws discovered late in development are expensive to fix, requiring component rewrites, layout overhauls, and regression testing. Plan Design Review moves this discovery to the planning phase.
• Without a structured review process, UI/UX feedback tends to be subjective and inconsistent. Scoring each dimension from 0 to 10 creates a repeatable, comparable evaluation standard.
• Plans with weak information architecture or poor interaction flow often pass review because reviewers lack a checklist. This skill applies a multi-dimensional framework that covers visual hierarchy, usability, accessibility, and consistency.
• Teams frequently implement plans that are technically correct but experientially poor. The CEO-and-engineering review model ensures both business clarity and technical feasibility are evaluated together.
• Developers without design backgrounds have no reliable way to self-audit their UI plans. This skill provides that capability without requiring a dedicated design resource.

Core Highlights

• Rates each design dimension on a 0 to 10 scale with clear justification
• Explains precisely what changes would achieve a score of 10 for each dimension
• Revises the plan directly to incorporate those improvements
• Operates in plan mode, targeting specifications rather than rendered output
• Proactively suggests itself when a plan contains UI/UX components
• Mirrors the interactive dynamic of a CEO and engineering design review
• Pairs with /design-review for a complete pre-build and post-build audit workflow

How to Use It?

Basic Usage

Trigger the skill by including a design plan in your prompt and requesting a review.

User: Review the design plan for my onboarding flow.
[paste plan content]

The skill activates automatically when you use phrases such as "review the design plan" or "design critique" in your request.

User: Design critique on this dashboard layout plan.
[paste plan content]

Specific Scenarios

Scenario 1: Pre-implementation UI audit A developer has written a component plan for a multi-step form. Before building, they run Plan Design Review to check information hierarchy, field grouping logic, and error state handling. The review scores field labeling at 6 out of 10 and recommends inline validation placement, then updates the plan accordingly.

Scenario 2: Product manager plan validation A product manager submits a feature specification that includes a new settings panel. Plan Design Review evaluates visual consistency, discoverability, and cognitive load, returning a revised plan with improved grouping and clearer action labels.

Real-World Examples

A checkout flow plan receives a score of 5 out of 10 for trust signaling. The review identifies missing security indicators near the payment fields and revises the plan to include badge placement and copy adjustments.

A navigation redesign plan scores 4 out of 10 for mobile usability. The review flags tap target sizes and menu depth, then produces an updated plan with corrected specifications.