Enhance web ux

Which enhance skill? (surface router)

Your surface	Use
Web product page / dashboard — composition, hierarchy, spacing, motion	enhance-web-ui
Web product page — UX heuristics, flows, data wiring	enhance-web-ux
Web landing / marketing / portfolio (greenfield, anti-slop)	enhance-web-landing
Web existing site upgrade (audit-first, preserve behavior)	enhance-web-redesign
Web 3D / WebGL / cinematic scroll on an existing site (audit-first)	enhance-web-web3d
React Native screen (Expo / bare)	mobile-rn-screen
Capacitor / hybrid shell (one web app shipped to iOS + Android)	enhance-capacitor-ui (axis architecture first) → then the web or rn skill
Repo README showcase	enhance-readme

You are here: enhance-web-ux. Native iOS/Android (SwiftUI / Compose, no web layer) is out of scope for all of these — use Apple HIG / Material directly.

Enhance Page UX

A generative companion to the audit skills. Audits diagnose; this skill enhances. It takes a single route or screen and produces a concrete, design-system-compliant set of code changes that make the page feel hand-crafted — not template-generated.

Before any browser interaction, follow the rules in the protocol-browser-anti-stall skill.

---

Critical Rules — Read First

Replace, don't stack. When you find an empty column, redundant header, or a duplicated hint row, REPLACE it with semantic data. Never pile new chips on top of a layout that already wastes space.

No band-aid fixes. If a problem (label wraps, generic icon, missing AI indicator) shows up on multiple rows / pages / components, fix it at the helper / token level — not by patching one site at a time.

Inventory primitives before inventing. The design system already has Badge, Button, Card, Tooltip, semantic colour tokens, animation utilities, etc. Use them. If none fits, extend the existing primitive — don't sidestep with a one-off <div className="…">.

Never ship mock, dead, or rogue UX. Enhancements must be connected to the real product system: existing primitives, design tokens, domain helpers, API contracts, backend state, database schema, validation rules, permissions, and lifecycle events. Do not fake progress, status, counts, ownership, errors, or empty states in the component unless the user explicitly asks for a prototype.

Make feedback data-backed. If users need clearer feedback to know what is happening, first find the real data that should drive it (status enum, timestamp, count, queue state, error code, audit trail, sync state, etc.). If the data does not exist but is necessary for solid UX, propose or implement the smallest schema/backend/API enhancement rather than layering decorative UI over missing product state.

Every change must cite a heuristic. "Looks bad" is not a justification. "Violates NN/g #6 Recognition not Recall — all folder icons identical, forces reading names" is.

Verify at three viewports. Desktop (1440), tablet (1024), narrow (800). Catch wrap / overflow / collision before claiming done.

Anti AI-tells: identical-padding sections, generic 3-column icon-title-description grids, uniform border-radius on everything, every status the same colour, primary colour painted on every clickable element, lorem-ipsum empty states, and stock illustrations are all forbidden. If the page has them, they are part of the work.

Screenshots are necessary but not sufficient. Many of the worst pains are silent — wrapper-collapsed tiles, dead conditional slots, the same datum repeated 3× in one fold, monochromatic surfaces on a tier-A consumer product. None of these are reported by users and most of them survive a cursory screenshot review. Add the DOM Forensics pass (Step 2.5) and the Silent-Pain Catalogue (Step 3b) on every enhancement.

Patch the primitive, not the consumer. When a layout, colour, or wrap bug repeats across multiple call sites, the wrapper / helper / token is broken — fix it once at the definition. A Tooltip defaulting to inline-flex, an EditorialHero with an unconditional 160px media floor, a Badge without whitespace-nowrap — every band-aid you apply at the consumer leaves the bug live for the next page.

Audit the library-vs-CSS specificity war. Headless data-grid libraries (TanStack Table, AG-Grid, MUI DataGrid, Chakra DataTable, react-table) emit inline style={{ width: header.getSize() + 'px' }} on every cell. Inline styles beat your CSS unless you use !important, table-layout: fixed, or drive widths through CSS variables that the rule then overwrites. A "wasted space + truncated content" report on a table page is almost always this gotcha — the fix is not another wrapper, it's auditing the column-meta CSS rules at every viewport with DevTools Computed → width open. Same audit applies to Chart.js / D3 defaults, Mantine SegmentedControl, MUI Tabs (MuiTab-root width), etc.

Chrome is wayfinding, not content. Header rows, breadcrumb chains, tab strips, dock cells, sidebars, toolbars all support the content — they should recede. If chrome competes for visual weight with the page body (full-cell brand-color washes, bordered card-on-card chips, heavy Home-as-button chrome, redundant breadcrumbs on root routes), the user reports "atrocious" / "clunky" / "heavy". Calm protocol: strip backgrounds → borders → tints → fills, in that order, until the chrome reads as a tonal recess that frames the content. For active-state signaling, prefer micro-indicators (underline, M3 32×16 pill on icon, count-badge tint, font-weight bump) over full-cell fills — see Hidden Failure Modes H1, H2, H3 in enhance-web-ui.

One brand-color element per visual zone. A page should have ONE brand/accent-tinted element per zone (header, breadcrumb, tab row, dock, body). If breadcrumb chips, tab badges, AND the actual primary CTA all wear the brand color, the actual CTA loses scent. Demote the chrome ones to neutral typography; reserve brand color for the action the user is here to take + status chips that carry meaning + the active micro-indicator.

---

Workflow Checklist

Copy this to track progress across the enhancement:

ENHANCE /<route>
- [ ] 0. PRODUCT TIER: domain class → colour-tier (A vibrant / B expressive /
 C productive / D restrained) — see enhance-web-ui §1.5
- [ ] 1. RECON: route, components, data shape, primitives, tokens, wrappers
- [ ] 2. LIVE: browser MCP at 1440 / 1024 / 800, screenshots, console
- [ ] 2.5 DOM FORENSICS: rect widths/heights for repeated tiles, conditional
 slot zero-state, dup-datum scan per fold (see Step 2.5)
- [ ] 3. PAIN INVENTORY: user-reported + silent issues + DOM forensics, with
 viewport (see Silent-Pain Catalogue in Step 3b)
- [ ] 4. HEURISTIC MAP: each pain → NN/g # + Law of UX (HEURISTICS.md)
- [ ] 5. PRIMITIVE MATCH: each fix → existing component / token / helper;
 prefer wrapper-level patch when bug repeats (see Step 5b)
- [ ] 6. ENHANCEMENT PLAN: table of pain → heuristic → primitive → file → diff
- [ ] 7. IMPLEMENT: smallest possible diffs, primitive fixes first, intent
 comments only
- [ ] 8. VERIFY: re-screenshot at 3 viewports + DOM uniformity recheck +
 category-squint pass + lint, compare before/after
- [ ] 9. WRITE-UP: pain → heuristic → fix, with screenshots

---

Step 1 — RECON: Understand the Page Before Touching It

1a. Read the route entry

Glob: **/pages/**/<route>*.tsx OR **/app/<route>/page.tsx
Read: the route file in full (not snippets)

Extract:

• Workflow position: where does this page sit in the user journey? (entry, processing, outcome, hub)
• Primary task: what is the ONE thing a user comes here to do?
• Data domain: what entities are displayed? (files / invoices / messages / tax forms / …)
• Adjacent screens: what page do users come from / go to next?

1b. Map the component tree

Grep: imports inside the route file
Read: each top-level child component

Build a small ASCII tree of components and what each owns:

<RoutePage>
├── <PageHeader> — title + breadcrumbs + summary KPIs
├── <Toolbar> — filters + actions
├── <FolderTree> — hierarchical list (the meat)
│ └── <TreeNode> — single row renderer
└── <DetailPanel> — selection-driven inspector

1c. Inventory the data shape

For every entity rendered, list ALL fields available — including the ones the page does NOT currently show. Many enhancement opportunities are "we already have this data, we just don't display it" (AI metadata, link status, aggregates, last-modified, owner, …).

Read: src/types/<entity>.ts
Read: src/features/<feature>/types.ts
Read: API loaders/actions/routes that fetch or mutate the entity
Read: schema/migrations/models when UI state depends on persisted status

Also identify whether each visual cue is backed by real product state. Badges, progress, alerts, disabled states, empty states, and "recent" indicators should map to data contracts or domain helpers, not hardcoded component guesses.

1d. Inventory primitives + tokens (THIS IS NON-NEGOTIABLE)

Glob: src/components/ui/*.tsx — Badge, Button, Card, Tooltip, …
Read: tailwind.config.* OR globals.css — semantic colour tokens (signal-*, ai, brand, muted)
Glob: src/features/<feature>/helpers/* — domain helpers already available

Write the list down. You will refer to it in step 5 — every fix must use one of these.

1e. Look for usage docs / forbidden patterns

Grep: "NEVER|FORBIDDEN|DO NOT|avoid" in **/*.md AND component file headers
Grep: "@deprecated" in src

A common find: a primitive that documents "do NOT use bg-X with text-X" — respect it.

---

Step 2 — LIVE: Observe the Real Page, Not the Code

2a. Three-viewport screenshot pass

Use the browser MCP. Always in this order, always with viewport set BEFORE navigate:

1440 × 900 — desktop, full data density
1024 × 700 — tablet / split-screen — first place buttons & badges break
 800 × 700 — narrow — first place column truncation & wrap appear

For each viewport: navigate → wait → snapshot → screenshot → console messages.

2b. Click into representative items

A list page hides most of its bugs in the expanded / selected / empty states. Programmatically click into:

• An empty container / folder / thread
• A populated container with diverse children
• A row with the maximum number of badges / metadata
• A search-with-no-results state

2c. Record what you see, not what you expect

For each screenshot capture, write 2-3 lines:

1440 — toolbar fits, but `通知書ZIP` button label competes with primary CTA
1024 — `アップロード` button is OK, `通知書ZIP` collapses to icon (no label)
 800 — folder badges (経費 / 通知書) wrap to 2 lines under the name; status
 chip wraps 未処→理 onto a new line because column is 64px

---

Step 2.5 — DOM FORENSICS (catch the silent bugs)

Screenshots show what looks weird. DOM forensics shows why. Run this pass before declaring the page understood, especially when a user reports "looks weird", "feels off", "stacked", or "monochromatic" — those are usually symptoms of one of the four silent bugs below.

2.5a — Repeated-element uniformity gate

For every group that should render with uniform widths/heights — grid tiles, segmented-control segments, table columns, sidebar nav rows, form fields, stat cards — measure them. Run this in the browser MCP / console / Playwright evaluate:

// Generic, framework-free — works on any web stack
const tiles = [...document.querySelectorAll('<your-tile-selector>')]
 .map(el => {
 const r = el.getBoundingClientRect();
 return { w: Math.round(r.width), h: Math.round(r.height), x: Math.round(r.x) };
 });
const widths = tiles.map(t => t.w);
const widthSpan = Math.max(...widths) - Math.min(...widths);
console.table(tiles);
console.log({ widthSpan, uniform: widthSpan <= 1 });
// widthSpan > 1 on tiles that share `grid-cols-N` parent === wrapper-collapse bug

If widthSpan > 1, walk up the DOM tree from one of the leaf tiles and getComputedStyle() each ancestor until you find one with display: inline-flex / inline-block, or a flex parent without min-width: 0, or a grid-template-columns that uses bare 1fr with intrinsic-content children. That ancestor is the bug — see Step 5b for the fix.

2.5b — Conditional-slot zero-state probe

For every slot/region defined as optional in the component (media, aside, cover, eyebrow, secondaryCTA, illustration, footerSlot, extra, actions[1]), inspect its sparse state. Open the page as a brand-new user / empty account / fresh route and screenshot at 800px. Look for slots that are reserving floor space they don't fill.

Symptoms (any one of these → confirmed dead slot):

• A region card that is >120px tall but contains <40 chars of content.
• A two-column grid where one column has just an icon and a number taking <20% of its track height.
• A min-h-[Npx] / aspect-ratio floor whose visible content occupies <40% of it.

Generic rule: if the slot was sized for illustrations / charts / device mockups, it must be tested with no illustration. Many heroes look great in marketing screenshots and become dead conditional slots on a real first-run page.

2.5c — Information-duplication scan per fold

For every viewport-height fold of the rendered page, list every datum (numbers, status words, dates, percentages, counts) and how many times it appears:

Fold 1 of /home @ 390×844:
- "0/10 words today" ×3 (eyebrow metric, action pill, footer strip)
- "0%" ×2 (action pill, Today metric tile)
- streak count "1d" ×2 (eyebrow metric, Streak tile)

Anything that appears ≥2 times in a single fold is a duplicate. The duplication is the diagnosis: pick the most actionable placement, keep that one, replace the others with complementary data (or delete and absorb the space into the chosen instance).

Cite NN/g #8 (Aesthetic & Minimalist) when documenting these.

2.5d — Category-squint colour pass

After the layout passes, take the desktop screenshot and apply a 10–15px Gaussian blur (any image tool). For tier-A / tier-B products (consumer, gamified, learning, lifestyle — see Domain Colour Tier in enhance-web-ui), check that:

• A 3-up or 4-up of category tiles renders as 3–4 distinct colour blobs after blur. If they all blur to the same neutral, the tile tints are too faint for the product domain → bump from /5–/10 to /15–/25 per the tier-A scale.
• The primary CTA blurs to its own colour blob distinct from surrounding chrome. If it disappears into the surface tint, contrast is too low for a saturated-colour product.

For tier-D products (data dashboards, finance, admin) the opposite result is correct — tiles should blur to near-uniform achromatic neutrals with colour reserved for status pills. Tier mismatch is a diagnosis, not just an aesthetic preference.

---

Step 3 — PAIN INVENTORY (don't hand-wave)

Maintain a single table. Include user-reported pains AND silent ones you discovered.

#	Source	Pain	Viewport	Notes
1	user	Can't tell linked-document folders from regular	all	"many doc types"
2	user	Can't see which folders had AI analysis	all	inline chip needed
3	user	Toolbar button text wraps to 2 lines	1024	通知書ZIP
4	live	金額 and サイズ columns are EMPTY for folder rows	desktop	wasted real estate
5	live	未処理 status badge wraps 未処/理 inside 64px column	desktop	column too narrow
6	live	Hint row "☐チェックで選択 …" repeats forever above every list	all	violates #8 minimal
7	live	All folder icons are the same blue folder glyph	all	violates #6 recognition

Do not skip silent pains. The user reports the loudest issue but rarely the worst one.

3b — Silent-Pain Catalogue (always check these)

The most damaging UX pains are usually not user-reported because users don't have the vocabulary to describe them. After the user-reported pains are listed, walk this catalogue and add every match as a separate row in the inventory table:

#	Silent pain class	Where to look	NN/g	Symptom example
S1	Wrapper-collapsed tiles	Step 2.5a (rect widths)	#4 Consistency, #8 Minimalist	3-up of equal tiles renders 80px / 80px / 80px in a 358px row, huge gaps between
S2	Dead conditional slot	Step 2.5b (zero-state probe)	#8 Aesthetic & Minimalist	160px-tall hero media slot containing only "0%" + an icon
S3	Information duplication per fold	Step 2.5c (dup-datum scan)	#8 Aesthetic & Minimalist	"0/10 words today" appears in eyebrow + pill + footer strip
S4	Monochromatic surface (tier mismatch)	Step 2.5d (category squint)	#1 Visibility, #6 Recognition	tier-A product with /5–/8 tints; tiles blur to one neutral hue
S5	Left-anchored stack	Live screenshot	#4 Consistency	every card full-width, every label left, no right-side anchors → "templated" feel
S6	Helper-row recall load	Live screenshot	#6 Recognition over Recall	always-on hint row above every list ("☐ check to select…")
S7	Generic icon stack	Live screenshot	#2 Match real world, #6 Recognition	every category uses the same Folder / File / Item glyph
S8	Async result invisible	Read state contracts in step 1c	#1 Visibility of System Status	AI summary, link, sync, error happened but no UI signal
S9	Wrapping CTA / wrapping label	Step 2c (3-viewport notes)	#4 Consistency, Fitts's	button text breaks to 2 lines at 1024px
S10	Empty column / zero cell stuck on screen	Live screenshot at desktop	#8 Aesthetic & Minimalist	Amount / Size columns rendered for folder rows that don't have one
S11	Library-vs-CSS specificity war	DevTools Computed → width on <th>/<td> at every viewport; check whether your responsive rule is crossed-out in favor of element.style	#4 Consistency, #8 Minimalist	TanStack Table / AG-Grid / MUI DataGrid emits inline style="width:150px" from header.getSize(); your [data-priority="primary"]{width:auto} rule loses without !important or table-layout:fixed. Symptom: "wasted space + truncation" at tablet widths only.
S12	Active-state mass mismatch	Compare bounding boxes of active vs inactive sibling tabs / dock cells / nav items at the same viewport; squint test	#4 Consistency, NN/g Navigation: You Are Here	Active tab uses full-cell bg-brand-soft while siblings have transparent bg → active reads as 1.5× heavier even at identical layout dimensions. Symptom: "clunky", "weirdly big", "heights are incoherent".
S13	Chrome tautology on root / index route	Open / (or the app root); count chrome zones that say the same word as the page H1	#8 Aesthetic & Minimalist, NN/g Visibility	🏠 › Home breadcrumb under a header that already has a Home dock-active and a "Home" H1 → 3 instances of the same word in one fold. Symptom: "atrocious", "redundant", "useless row".
S14	Card-on-card chrome	Inspect every chip / pill / badge — does it sit on a row whose own background is already a tonal recess?	#8 Aesthetic & Minimalist	Active breadcrumb chip with bg-card border-brand/25 shadow-sm sits on a row already painted bg-muted/40 → two distinct elevations within 6 px. Symptom: chrome "feels heavy", "stuck on", "buttoned-up".
S15	Hover-only affordance with no touch fallback	Grep group-hover:opacity-100, opacity-0 hover:opacity-100, md:opacity-0 and check the parent for focus-within: / always-visible alternative below the pointer breakpoint	#6 Recognition over Recall, #7 Flexibility & Efficiency	Row action buttons (delete, archive, edit) only appear on :hover; on a touch device the user can't tap them. Symptom: silent — user never reports it because they don't know the action exists.
S16	Brand-color competition	In a single viewport screenshot, count surfaces tinted in the brand color (border / fill / ring / text) within one zone; subtract the intended primary CTA + meaningful status chips	NN/g Visual Hierarchy, #4 Consistency	Brand-mint border on the breadcrumb home icon + brand-mint border on active page chip + brand-mint primary CTA → user's eye can't find the primary action. Symptom: "noisy even though it's clean", "I can't tell what to click".
S17	Hit area baked into visual chrome	Inspect icon buttons; is the visible surface (background, border, padding) sized for the touch target (w-11 h-11) instead of the icon's optical weight?	NN/g Visual Hierarchy, Fitts's	A 14 px icon sits in a 44 px bordered card; the chrome is sized for the thumb, not the eye. Symptom: "icon button feels chunky" / "buttons everywhere".
S18	Inverted responsive visibility	List every column's hideBelowMd/mobile:hidden/className per viewport in a table; look for columns that appear at one breakpoint and disappear at the next up	#4 Consistency	Column tagged hideBelowMd: true but rendered via sm:hidden → appears on sm, hides on md+. Symptom: "missing column at wide viewport" / "duplicate column on mobile".

A good enhancement plan typically catches 2–4 silent pains per user-reported pain. If your final pain inventory has only user-reported rows, you skipped Step 2.5.

---

Step 4 — HEURISTIC MAP (every fix needs a WHY)

For each pain, name the violated heuristic. Use HEURISTICS.md for the canonical list. A pain that cannot be tied to a heuristic is probably a personal taste call — defer it.

#	Pain	NN/g #	Law of UX	Why it violates
1	linked-doc folders look like all others	#1 Visibility, #6 Recognition	Hick's	system state hidden, user must read names to discriminate
2	no AI marker	#1 Visibility	—	hides the result of an async, expensive operation
3	button wraps to 2 lines	#4 Consistency, #8 Minimalist	Fitts's	breaks rhythm; hit target shape unstable across widths
4	empty cells in 金額 / サイズ	#8 Aesthetic & Minimalist	—	"every extra unit of information competes with the relevant ones"
5	status badge wraps onto two lines	#4 Consistency	—	Japanese 2-character labels need whitespace-nowrap + sized column
6	always-on hint row	#6 Recognition over Recall, #8 Minimalist	—	repeated affordance hint = recall, not recognition; wastes a row forever
7	all folders same icon	#2 Match real world, #6 Recognition	Miller's	mental categories collapse; cognitive load to scan

---

Step 5 — PRIMITIVE MATCH (no inventions)

For each fix, match an existing primitive. If none fits, extend the closest one — never reach for a raw <div> styled inline.

#	Fix idea	Primitive / token	Where it lives
1	category-aware folder icon + chip	Badge (variant=outline) + lucide-react icon	new helper getFolderCategory
2	"AI" chip on folder + file	Badge size=xs + token bg-ai-soft text-ai	extend tree-node.tsx
3	toolbar buttons one-line	AnimatedButton + whitespace-nowrap flex-shrink-0 + progressive md:inline / lg:inline	<route>-page.tsx
4	replace empty 金額 with folder total	aggregate helper getFolderAggregates (compute) + tabular-num cell	new helper
5	non-wrapping status badge	Badge + whitespace-nowrap px-1.5	tree-node.tsx; consider patching Badge base
6	drop the always-on hint row	delete + replace with Tooltip on column header ? glyph	folder-management.tsx
7	category icon stack	switch on category, render Icon + bg tint via token	getFolderCategory.tsx

If a fix would add a new primitive, STOP and ask: "could this be a variant on an existing primitive?" Almost always: yes.

Further reading

• 5b — Primitive-First Patch Decision and more