taste-feedback

Live Taste Feedback

The standard Designpowers pipeline catches taste mismatches at critique — after the full build is done. That's expensive. A wrong colour palette discovered after 8 components are built means rebuilding all 8. This skill interrupts the build at strategic moments to show intermediate output and ask: "Is this heading in the right direction?"

When to Use

• During design-builder execution, at natural visual checkpoints
• When the build involves subjective aesthetic decisions (colour, typography, spacing, tone)
• When the taste profile has soft patterns but no strong opinions for this decision
• When the project is new and the system has limited taste data for this user
• When the design-lead's direction was based on interpretation, not explicit user instruction

Do Not Use When

• The user is in auto mode and hasn't opted into taste checks
• The build is purely structural (data models, API integration, routing)
• The taste profile has strong opinions that already constrain this decision
• The user has explicitly said "just build it, I'll review at the end"

Process

Step 1: Identify Checkpoints

Before the build begins, identify 2-4 moments where taste feedback is most valuable. More than 4 interruptions becomes annoying. Choose wisely.

High-value checkpoints:

Checkpoint	Why It Matters	When to Show
Colour and typography applied	The foundational visual layer — everything else builds on this	After the first component is styled
Layout structure visible	Spatial relationships, density, whitespace	After the primary screen scaffold is built
First interaction implemented	How the interface moves and responds	After the first stateful component works
Content integrated	How real words look in the design	After content-writer's copy is in place

Low-value checkpoints (avoid):

Checkpoint	Why It's Low Value
Unstyled HTML structure	Nothing to react to aesthetically
Individual component in isolation	Context-free judgement is unreliable
After every small change	Interruption fatigue kills the creative flow

Step 2: Prepare the Checkpoint

At each checkpoint, capture the current state:

1. Take a screenshot of the running output (or describe the visual state precisely if screenshots aren't available)
2. Identify the taste-sensitive decisions visible in the current output
3. Prepare specific questions — do not ask "does this look good?" (too vague)

Good taste questions are specific and answerable:

Bad Question	Good Question
"Does this look good?"	"The heading is set in 32px Inter Medium — is that weight right, or do you want bolder/lighter?"
"Any feedback?"	"The cards have 16px padding and 8px radius. Does this density feel right, or do you want more breathing room?"
"Is this the right direction?"	"I went warm grey (#F5F3F0) for the background instead of pure white. Does this warmth match what you had in mind?"

Step 3: Present the Checkpoint

Show the user the intermediate state with targeted questions:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
  TASTE CHECK  [1 of 3]
  Phase: [e.g., "Colour & Typography"]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

  [Screenshot or detailed visual description]

  DECISIONS VISIBLE:
  • [Decision 1 — e.g., "Sage green (#8FAE8B) as primary"]
  • [Decision 2 — e.g., "Space Grotesk for headings, Inter for body"]
  • [Decision 3 — e.g., "Generous padding, low density"]

  TASTE QUESTIONS:
  1. [Specific question about a visible decision]
  2. [Specific question about a visible decision]

  Quick responses welcome:
  • "Looks right" → continue building
  • "Warmer/cooler/bolder/quieter" → adjust and continue
  • "Stop — wrong direction" → pause build, discuss
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Step 4: Process the Response

The user's response determines what happens next:

Response	Action	Taste Signal
"Looks right" / "Yes" / "Continue"	Resume building. No changes needed	Moderate positive — note in design-memory as confirmed direction
Specific adjustment ("make it warmer")	Apply the adjustment, show confirmation, then continue	Strong — record the adjustment and the direction they moved from/to
"Wrong direction" / "Stop"	Pause the build. Ask what feels off. This is the most valuable taste data	Very strong negative — record what was rejected and why
Detailed feedback ("I like the type but the colour feels too muted")	Apply partial changes. Acknowledge what works, adjust what doesn't	Mixed signal — record both the positive and negative separately
"Skip these checks"	Disable further taste checks for this build. Respect the preference	Meta-preference — they want to review at the end instead

Step 5: Adjust and Confirm

When the user requests a change:

1. Make the adjustment
2. Show the updated state briefly — do not re-present the full checkpoint
3. Confirm: "Updated [what changed]. Continuing the build."
4. Do not ask for re-approval unless the change was ambiguous

If the change cascades (e.g., new colour palette affects multiple components already built):

1. Flag the cascade: "This colour change will affect the 3 components already built. I'll update them all."
2. Update everything before continuing
3. Optionally show the cascaded result at the next checkpoint

Step 6: Record Taste Data

After each checkpoint interaction, update taste signals:

1. Record confirmed decisions as positive signals in design-memory
2. Record adjustments with before/after — these are the richest taste data
3. Record rejections as anti-pattern candidates
4. Note the direction of adjustments — "wanted warmer", "wanted more contrast", "wanted tighter spacing" — these directional signals generalize across projects

Checkpoint Frequency

Adapt based on user behaviour:

User Behaviour	Adjust To
Approves every checkpoint quickly	Reduce to 1-2 checkpoints — they trust the direction
Gives detailed feedback at every checkpoint	Maintain 3-4 — they want to shape the output
Says "skip" or seems impatient	Drop to 1 checkpoint or none — ask at the end
Requests more checkpoints	Add checkpoints — they want more control

The system should learn this preference over time via design-memory.

Integration With Pipeline Modes

Mode	Behaviour
Direct	Taste checkpoints are shown naturally — they fit the approval flow
Auto	Taste checkpoints are disabled by default in auto mode. The user chose speed. If the user opts in ("auto but check my taste"), enable minimal checkpoints (1-2 max)

Integration

• Called by: design-builder (at visual checkpoints during build), using-designpowers (can be enabled/disabled)
• Calls: design-memory (to record taste signals from feedback)
• Reads from: Taste profile (to determine checkpoint frequency and known preferences), design-state.md (for current decisions)
• Pairs with: design-memory, ui-composition, designpowers-critique

Anti-Patterns

Pattern	Why It Fails
Asking "does this look good?"	Too vague. The user can't give actionable feedback without specific questions
Checking after every change	Interruption fatigue. 2-4 checkpoints per build, maximum
Showing unstyled output	There's nothing to react to. Wait until visual decisions are visible
Ignoring "skip" signals	If the user wants to review at the end, respect that. Don't force mid-flight checks
Not recording feedback	Every checkpoint interaction is taste data. If you don't record it, you'll ask the same questions next project
Presenting in auto mode without consent	Auto mode means "don't interrupt me." Only show taste checks if the user explicitly opted in
Asking about non-visual decisions	"Is this the right React component pattern?" is not a taste question. Keep checks visual and aesthetic