dembrandt

Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics. Use when auditing an interface, designing interaction flows, writing error messages or reviewing usability.

Lighthouse audits and Core Web Vitals — LCP, CLS, INP. Use when optimising page load, layout shift, input delay, images, fonts or render-blocking resources.

Light, dark or both, and when a theme selector is worth it. Use when defining a base palette or deciding on dark mode support.

Match information density to platform and user type. Use when designing data tables, dashboards or toolbars, or adapting a desktop product for mobile.

Helper text, placeholders, validation and submit behaviour. Use when designing or reviewing a form, input field or data entry UI.

Shape language across type, radius and icons carries brand personality. Use when starting a design system, picking icons or radius tokens, or reviewing visual consistency.

Semantic HTML5, SEO basics, alt text, progressive enhancement and SPA concerns. Use when building web UI, reviewing markup or optimising for search.

Disney's animation principles and cinematic technique applied to UI motion. Use when designing transitions, scroll animations or onboarding motion.

Naming, navigation, a UI that mirrors the data model, confirms for irreversible changes. Use when structuring a large application or naming its entities.

Ratio-based type scale where every size relates to the others. Use when defining font sizes or type tokens, or when typography feels arbitrary.

Derive a full UI palette from one or two brand colours — state variants, brand-tinted greys, semantic colours. Use when building or expanding a colour system.

Guided multi-step paths and wizards. Use when designing onboarding, checkout, setup sequences or any multi-step journey.

Mobile, tablet and desktop are different paradigms, not one layout scaled. Use when designing responsive layouts or deciding what each breakpoint shows.

Group controls with Gestalt principles so users see what belongs together. Use when laying out components, navigation, toolbars, forms or dashboards.

Size, colour, weight and position mark what matters most. Use when designing button groups, CTAs, cards, dashboards or any layout with a primary action.

Rest, hover, active, focus, disabled and loading states, derived from the base colour. Use when designing buttons, links, inputs or any clickable component.

WCAG 2.2 AA compliance as required by the European Accessibility Act. Use when designing, building or reviewing any user-facing interface for accessibility.

Buttons, inputs, badges and pills share radius, colour logic, shadow, border and spacing. Use when building or reviewing a component library.

Spinners, skeletons and staggered reveals that manage wait times. Use when designing loading states, async data or the feel of a slow interface.

Pipeline from a URL or DESIGN.md to tokens, decisions and a UI spec. Use when building UI for an existing brand, auditing a design system or fixing visual inconsistency.

Small purposeful animations — toggles, animated icons, success moments. Use when designing interactive feedback, success states or loaders.

Extract colours, typography, spacing, components and W3C design tokens from a live website with Dembrandt. Use when you need a site's real tokens or want to seed a design system from it.

Few semantic colours, each meaning one thing, and errors with a way forward. Use when designing status indicators, validation, alerts or error states.

Shadows and layering that lift elements above the surface. Use when designing cards, dropdowns, modals, tooltips or any floating element.

Sticky headers, bottom toolbars, floating action buttons and pinned table headers. Use when deciding what stays on screen while the user scrolls.

View modes, row selection, mass actions, sorting, filters, search and table patterns. Use when designing data tables, listings, file browsers or any collection.

Toasts, inline errors, banners and recovery paths. Use when designing error states, success confirmations, async feedback or in-place editing.

Avoid inner scroll containers; when unavoidable, one axis at a time. Use when a layout, table or panel might scroll inside the page.

Show where the user is and what their actions affect — breadcrumbs, regions, scope labels. Use when designing deep navigation or multi-section layouts.

Cards, drawers, carousels and other patterns borrowed from the physical world. Use when designing layout patterns, gestures or navigation paradigms.

Currency, language, region and unit selectors live in a low-profile header or footer spot. Use when designing locale switchers or product-wide preference controls.

Orchestrator that routes a UI/UX task through brand, tokens, layout, components, polish and accessibility. Use for multi-concern work such as a design review, UI build or interface audit.

Choose a layout paradigm (feed, board, table, canvas, master-detail, dashboard) and reuse it across screens. Includes a landing page narrative framework. Use when structuring a screen, page template or landing page.

Modals, drawers, bottom sheets and popovers, each with its scope and blocking level. Use when designing dialogs, confirmations, side panels or action sheets.

Dense, linear, status-at-a-glance UI for specialists who use a tool all day. Use when designing dispatch, warehouse, logistics, scheduling or other B2B operations tools.

Cards, rows, tiles and cells are fixed slot models that stay aligned when content length varies. Use when building or reviewing any repeated component.

Tabs swap views under a shared context. Use when designing tabbed layouts, settings pages, detail views or dashboards with several data views.

Show a table and its map, diagram, timeline or chart together, with selection synced both ways. Use when data appears in two representations at once.

Product visuals must show the real product with real data. Use when building landing pages, hero sections, screenshots or demo panels.

Settings for experts who are not developers — domain language, sane defaults, grouping by professional concept. Use when designing settings panels, solver configuration or constraint editors.