This skill should be used when the user is building or reviewing onboarding flows, empty states, progress checklists, signup forms, product tours, or first-run experiences. Covers progressive disclosure of features, time-to-value optimization, the Zeigarnik effect, and feature revelation strategy.
npx claudepluginhub oborchers/fractional-cto --plugin saas-design-principlesThis skill uses the workspace's default tool permissions.
Nielsen defined progressive disclosure in 2006: defer advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone. This improves learnability, efficiency of use, and error rate.
Generates design tokens/docs from CSS/Tailwind/styled-components codebases, audits visual consistency across 10 dimensions, detects AI slop in UI.
Records polished WebM UI demo videos of web apps using Playwright with cursor overlay, natural pacing, and three-phase scripting. Activates for demo, walkthrough, screen recording, or tutorial requests.
Delivers idiomatic Kotlin patterns for null safety, immutability, sealed classes, coroutines, Flows, extensions, DSL builders, and Gradle DSL. Use when writing, reviewing, refactoring, or designing Kotlin code.
Nielsen defined progressive disclosure in 2006: defer advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone. This improves learnability, efficiency of use, and error rate.
Never go beyond two levels of disclosure. Usability drops rapidly at three or more levels because users get lost navigating between them. If a settings panel requires three levels of nesting, the design needs simplification, not more progressive disclosure.
Linear's philosophy: "Simple first, then powerful." Intercom's principle: "Simple and opinionated by default, progressively reveal power and flexibility."
Onboarding is progressive disclosure applied to time. The data is stark: 40–60% of signup users never return after their first experience. Every extra minute in time-to-value lowers conversion by approximately 3%.
Checklists work because of the Zeigarnik effect — the psychological need to complete unfinished tasks.
Rules:
Empty states are the most underrated onboarding surface. Notion fills its empty first-use state with educational content that doubles as a checklist.
Every empty state needs three things:
Never show a blank screen with "No data yet." An empty state should never feel empty or negative, even when things aren't working as expected (SAP Fiori).
When reviewing or building progressive disclosure: