Chwezi Design Engine

Chwezi Design Engine is the Chwezi cross-cutting engine for the presentation layer: typography, colour, brand identity, layout, interface and interaction design, UX process, content design, imagery, motion, data visualisation, documents, presentations, print and game visual experience. It activates alongside whichever domain engine owns the content, and it governs how that content looks and behaves. Its 101 skills cover selection, specification, production handoff and review, under a written anti-slop doctrine. That doctrine has three working parts. The first is a machine-readable banned-font list (doctrine/references/ai-slop-banned-fonts.json), enforced by a write-time gate: a hard ban on Inter, Geist, Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Arial, Fraunces and the whole IBM Plex superfamily; a secondary ban on seventeen further faces, including Space Grotesk, Poppins, Montserrat, DM Sans, Playfair Display and Lora; and Source Sans 3 allowed only as a paired body face. The second is chwezi-slop, a deterministic detector that checks source files and rendered pages against a rule registry. The third is design_query, an offline catalogue with calibrated search that declines to answer when no record fits the query.

The engine works to WCAG 2.2 AA (ISO/IEC 40500:2025) and the WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices, PDF/UA-2 (ISO 14289-2:2024), ISO 9241-161:2025, Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and Material 3, the SIL Open Font License 1.1 for font embedding, and the ISO 12647 and PDF/X conventions for print. Its outputs include design directions and art-direction boards, brand identity and style guides, colour systems and design-token packs, typeface selections with licence checks, interface and interaction specifications, handoff redlines with acceptance criteria, formatting specifications for DOCX, PDF, PPTX and XLSX, print specifications, dashboards and infographics, recorded UI demo videos, and severity-rated audits (design, WCAG 2.2, anti-slop and whole-product) with remediation plans. It serves designers, product and engineering teams, agencies, and the other Chwezi engines whenever their deliverables need a considered visual layer. Every font approval traces to human design authority. AI-vendor sources are admitted only as evidence for a ban.

Installation

Prerequisites. Node.js 18 or later runs the clone installer, the hooks and the chwezi-slop detector. CI uses Node 24. Python 3.11 or later runs the validators, design_query and the Codex model-policy helper; CI uses Python 3.12, with PyYAML and pytest. The detector's browser tier uses the consuming project's own locked Playwright and installs nothing itself.

Claude Code plugin. The marketplace is chwezi-design-engine and the plugin is design-engine (version 1.1.0, defined in .claude-plugin/):

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/peterbamuhigire/chwezi-design-engine
/plugin install design-engine@chwezi-design-engine

The plugin registers all 101 skills and the enforcement hooks in hooks/hooks.json: the banned-font gate, the token-file gate, the destructive-command gate, and the chwezi-slop immediate and deep passes. Setting hooks_enabled to false in the plugin's user configuration turns the hooks off and keeps the skills.

Clone installer. install.sh and install.ps1 delegate to scripts/install-engine.js. The default scope is the user (~/.claude); --scope project installs into .claude under the current directory. The installer also accepts --dry-run and --json, and scripts/install-engine.js provides uninstall, doctor and list-installed.

git clone https://github.com/peterbamuhigire/chwezi-design-engine
cd chwezi-design-engine
./install.sh --scope project        # macOS, Linux, Git Bash
.\install.ps1 --scope project       # Windows PowerShell

Codex. Codex reads AGENTS.md as the router. Before substantive work it runs python <engine-root>/.codex/ensure_model_policy.py --runtime codex --check (see .codex/README.md). Claude and other runners skip this step.

Manual route. Clone the repository and read AGENTS.md (CLAUDE.md is a thin bridge to it). Then read doctrine/design-doctrine.md, glob skills/**/SKILL.md fresh each time, route on the frontmatter description, and run governance/design-quality-gate.md before you call an artefact finished. In Claude Code, read these skills directly rather than through the Skill tool. Useful commands:

python -X utf8 scripts/design_query.py search "editorial report serif" --domain typography
node tools/slop-detector/cli.mjs --tier deep path/to/project
python -X utf8 scripts/validate_engine.py --baseline tests/quality-baseline.json
python -X utf8 scripts/routing_smoke_test.py --min-rank1 92 --lint-fixtures
python -X utf8 -m pytest -q

Capabilities

The tables below were generated from the 101 active SKILL.md files under skills/. The _TEMPLATE scaffold is excluded. The engine has no ALIAS.md entries.

Category	Folder	Skills
Quality, accessibility and review	00-cross-cutting-ops-qa-a11y	16
Typography and fonts	01-typography-and-fonts	7
Colour, brand and visual identity	02-color-brand-and-visual-identity	7
Layout, grid and composition	03-layout-grid-and-composition	4
Web and UI design	04-web-and-ui-design	10
UX process, research and psychology	05-ux-process-research-and-psychology	7
Sector and domain UX	06-sector-and-domain-ux	7
Mobile: iOS, Android, cross-platform	07-mobile-ios-android-cross-platform	5
Motion and interaction	08-motion-and-interaction	3
Design systems, tokens and theming	09-design-systems-tokens-and-theming	5
Content design and UX writing	10-content-design-and-ux-writing	3
Imagery, illustration and art direction	11-imagery-illustration-and-art-direction	6
Data visualisation and dashboards	12-data-viz-and-dashboards	4
Presentations and documents	13-presentations-and-documents	7
Conversion and web-page patterns	14-conversion-and-web-page-patterns	5
Game visual experience	15-game-visual-experience	5
Total		101

Category	Skill	What it does
Quality, accessibility and review	accessibility-wcag-2-2-compliance	Designs and audits interactive UI against WCAG 2.2 AA: keyboard, focus, names, target size, reflow
Quality, accessibility and review	click-path-audit	Traces controls that silently do nothing: resets, races, stale closures, final-state mismatches
Quality, accessibility and review	design-audit	Audits one UI, page, flow or document and returns evidence-backed, severity-rated findings
Quality, accessibility and review	design-critique-and-review-facilitation	Runs a critique session with a clear ask, a single decider and recorded outcomes
Quality, accessibility and review	design-engine-and-product-improvement	Runs Kaizen improvement cycles on this engine or a rendered product, with re-measurement
Quality, accessibility and review	design-ethics-and-anti-dark-patterns	Screens consent, urgency, pricing, subscription and retention flows for deception
Quality, accessibility and review	design-qa-and-pre-launch-review	Final go/no-go gate on parity, browsers, devices, accessibility, performance and slop
Quality, accessibility and review	inclusive-and-assistive-design	Designs beyond the WCAG floor, including low-literacy and shared-phone, low-bandwidth users
Quality, accessibility and review	internationalization-and-rtl-design	Adapts UI and documents to locales, scripts, RTL and bidi text, and locale formats
Quality, accessibility and review	performance-as-ux-and-core-web-vitals	Treats Core Web Vitals, asset and font weight, and layout shift as design constraints
Quality, accessibility and review	plan-canvas-design-review	Lets a reviewer anchor feedback to exact elements and return Approve or Request changes
Quality, accessibility and review	product-design-audit	Scores and prioritises findings across web, SaaS, iOS, Android and desktop surfaces
Quality, accessibility and review	slop-doctrine-refresh-and-research-loop	Refreshes banned-font and slop doctrine with the Digital Research Engine
Quality, accessibility and review	ui-demo	Records Playwright demo videos (WebM) with an injected cursor and rehearsed selectors
Quality, accessibility and review	ux-remediation-and-redesign	Turns audit findings into a remediation plan, redesign, re-test and before/after result
Quality, accessibility and review	visual-product-slop-audit	Audits imagery, brand assets, screens and AI features for visual and product slop
Typography and fonts	ai-slop-typography-audit	Finds banned or convergent type, weak hierarchy and unstated type choices
Typography and fonts	fine-typesetting-and-typesetting-qa	Checks rag, hyphenation, widows, figures, quotes, dashes and UK or East African style
Typography and fonts	fluid-responsive-typography	Scales browser type across viewports and containers while keeping zoom, reflow and measure
Typography and fonts	font-embedding-and-licensing	Embeds a chosen font in web, DOCX, PPTX, PDF or XLSX with verified permission
Typography and fonts	font-selection-and-pairing	Chooses and pairs typefaces for voice, audience and licence, outside the banned list
Typography and fonts	premium-font-scan	Checks local premium font folders and manifests before the OFL baseline is used
Typography and fonts	variable-fonts-and-opentype-features	Configures variable axes, optical sizing, numerals and OpenType features
Colour, brand and visual identity	accessible-color-and-contrast	Verifies and fixes contrast for text, UI, focus and data colours, with non-colour cues
Colour, brand and visual identity	brand-style-guide	Packages an approved identity into a client-facing guide
Colour, brand and visual identity	brand-visual-identity	Defines or refreshes an identity across logo use, colour, type, spacing and imagery
Colour, brand and visual identity	color-selection	Generates candidate website palettes from brand hues, imagery, audience and mood
Colour, brand and visual identity	color-system-and-palette	Builds tonal ramps, semantic roles, tokens, contrast contracts and theme mappings
Colour, brand and visual identity	dark-mode-and-theming	Builds and audits dark, high-contrast and multi-theme systems
Colour, brand and visual identity	logo-and-wordmark-design	Specifies marks, wordmarks, lockups, clear space, favicons and app icons
Layout, grid and composition	composition-and-visual-hierarchy	Sets focal point, reading order, figure-ground and visual tension
Layout, grid and composition	editorial-and-long-form-layout	Lays out articles, documentation and web reports for sustained reading
Layout, grid and composition	layout-grid-and-spacing	Defines columns, margins, gutters, spacing rhythm and alignment
Layout, grid and composition	responsive-and-adaptive-layout	Adapts layouts with intrinsic sizing, fluid values, breakpoints and container queries
Web and UI design	ai-agent-ux	Designs agent and copilot status, plans, approvals, uncertainty and trust controls
Web and UI design	ai-output-design	Structures AI answers with citations, grounding and editable refinement
Web and UI design	component-states-and-interaction-fidelity	Specifies hover, focus-visible, pressed, selected and read-only states for a control
Web and UI design	distinctive-by-design	Sets one defensible visual signature before high-fidelity build
Web and UI design	form-ux-design	Designs field anatomy, validation, errors, multi-step flow and submission recovery
Web and UI design	interaction-design-patterns	Selects proven behaviour, navigation, action, layout and data-display patterns
Web and UI design	interface-craft-micro-details	Checks concentric radii, optical alignment, tabular numerals and image edges
Web and UI design	practical-ui-design	Sets a practical system for colour, type, spacing, layout, buttons and forms
Web and UI design	premium-ui-ux-design	Conveys premium value through trust, clarity, restraint and service detail
Web and UI design	webapp-gui-design	Designs SaaS shells, dense desktop UI, tables, dialogs and system states
UX process, research and psychology	demo-driven-design-process	Converges designs through repeated demos, dogfooding, selection and decision capture
UX process, research and psychology	enterprise-ux-process	Runs a maturity-declared UX engagement for regulated, B2B or large internal products
UX process, research and psychology	heuristic-evaluation-and-design-critique	Inspects against Nielsen and Tognazzini heuristics with 0–4 severity
UX process, research and psychology	journey-mapping-and-service-design	Builds personas, JTBD, journeys, experience maps and service blueprints
UX process, research and psychology	ux-psychology	Gives cautious cognitive rationale: Gestalt, affordances, memory, attention, bias
UX process, research and psychology	ux-research-and-usability-testing	Plans usability sessions, field research, surveys, card and tree tests, and synthesis
UX process, research and psychology	wireframing-and-prototyping	Matches sketch, wireframe or prototype fidelity to the learning question
Sector and domain UX	ecommerce-and-checkout-ux	Designs product pages, cart, guest checkout, payment, returns and order status
Sector and domain UX	fintech-and-financial-product-ui	Designs banking, wallet, mobile-money and payment screens that prevent costly errors
Sector and domain UX	healthcare-ui-design	Designs safety-centred clinical, EHR, patient-portal and medication interfaces
Sector and domain UX	hospitality-hotel-restaurant	Designs guest journeys, booking and staff screens for hotels, restaurants and venues
Sector and domain UX	legal-sector-ui-ux	Designs law-firm sites with ethical trust signals, practice areas and intake
Sector and domain UX	pos-and-retail-operations	Designs point-of-sale workflows kept aligned with stock, customers and payments
Sector and domain UX	sector-strategies	Sets evidence-based web direction for sectors without a dedicated skill
Mobile: iOS, Android, cross-platform	android-ui-ux-design	Designs native Material and Compose screens, states and adaptive layouts
Mobile: iOS, Android, cross-platform	app-store-presence-and-aso	Plans store icons, screenshots, preview video, captions and localisation
Mobile: iOS, Android, cross-platform	cross-platform-design-parity	Makes unify-or-diverge decisions for one product on iOS and Android
Mobile: iOS, Android, cross-platform	ios-ui-ux-design	Designs native iPhone and iPad screens with Dynamic Type and VoiceOver
Mobile: iOS, Android, cross-platform	touch-gesture-and-haptics	Sets touch targets, thumb reach, gesture alternatives and truthful haptics
Motion and interaction	micro-interactions-and-feedback	Designs per-control feedback, optimistic actions, rollback and reduced-motion options
Motion and interaction	motion-design	Defines system timing, easing, transitions, choreography and reduced motion
Motion and interaction	motion-react-implementation	Implements approved motion in React or Next.js with motion/react, SSR-safe
Design systems, tokens and theming	component-library-architecture	Defines component anatomy, variants, states, slots, APIs and documentation
Design systems, tokens and theming	design-handoff-and-dev-spec	Hands off token-referenced redlines, states and testable acceptance criteria
Design systems, tokens and theming	design-tokens-and-naming	Names and exports primitive, semantic and component tokens across themes and brands
Design systems, tokens and theming	figma-and-tooling-workflow	Structures Figma variables, modes, auto-layout, Dev Mode and library publishing
Design systems, tokens and theming	measured-style-pack	Measures an approved reference into a deterministic token pack
Content design and UX writing	error-empty-and-system-messaging	Writes error, empty, loading, offline, permission and destructive-action messages
Content design and UX writing	ux-writing-and-microcopy	Writes buttons, labels, hints, tooltips, menus and other interface copy
Content design and UX writing	voice-tone-and-content-style-guide	Defines voice chart, tone map, terminology glossary and content style guide
Imagery, illustration and art direction	advertising-creative-art-direction	Art-directs campaign creative: copy-image relationships, big-idea tests, critique
Imagery, illustration and art direction	ai-image-generation-art-direction	Turns briefs into generated imagery with reject gates and provenance notes
Imagery, illustration and art direction	art-direction-routes	Proposes named routes and safe, stretch and bold direction boards from real content
Imagery, illustration and art direction	iconography-system-design	Designs icon grids, keylines, stroke, metaphors, naming and export
Imagery, illustration and art direction	illustration-style-and-systems	Defines illustration language, scene systems, characters and ownable motifs
Imagery, illustration and art direction	photography-art-direction	Directs sourcing, shooting, treatment, cropping and licensing of photographs
Data visualisation and dashboards	chart-selection-and-encoding	Chooses chart type and honest encoding for the question asked
Data visualisation and dashboards	dashboard-and-data-product-design	Designs dashboards and KPI scorecards with filters, drill-downs and freshness states
Data visualisation and dashboards	data-illustration-and-infographics	Designs self-contained infographics for print, presentation, web and social
Data visualisation and dashboards	data-visualization	Crafts and reviews single charts for accuracy, annotation and accessibility
Presentations and documents	deck-system	Designs decks, pitches and board updates with a visual system and presenter notes
Presentations and documents	design-storytelling-and-case-studies	Structures evidence-backed narratives for design decks and case studies
Presentations and documents	docx-report-and-document-formatting	Formats editable DOCX reports with named styles, contents, tables and embedded fonts
Presentations and documents	email-and-newsletter-design	Builds HTML email that holds up in Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail and dark mode
Presentations and documents	pdf-proposal-and-bankable-document-design	Designs print-ready PDF proposals, feasibility studies, tenders and lender documents
Presentations and documents	print-production-and-finishing	Specifies ink limits, spot colours, proofs, folds, binding and finishes for press
Presentations and documents	xlsx-and-financial-model-presentation	Presents XLSX models through number formats, styles, charts and print layout
Conversion and web-page patterns	empty-error-and-loading-states	Designs empty, error, loading, offline, partial-failure and retry states
Conversion and web-page patterns	landing-page-and-conversion-design	Structures landing and campaign pages around one honest conversion goal
Conversion and web-page patterns	navigation-and-information-architecture	Defines content inventory, taxonomy, sitemap, navigation, search and filters
Conversion and web-page patterns	onboarding-and-first-run-design	Designs first-run, activation, setup checklists and time-to-value paths
Conversion and web-page patterns	trust-credibility-and-social-proof	Selects, verifies and places testimonials, reviews, ratings and certifications
Game visual experience	educational-and-childrens-game-experience	Designs age-appropriate learning games with scaffolding, safety and stopping cues
Game visual experience	game-art-direction-and-visual-development	Sets visual pillars, shape language, colour scripting and an asset bible
Game visual experience	game-feel-feedback-camera-and-haptics	Tunes anticipation, impact, timing, VFX, camera, hit-stop and haptics
Game visual experience	game-ui-hud-and-diegetic-interfaces	Designs HUDs, menus, maps, inventory, controller focus and diegetic interfaces
Game visual experience	game-visual-experience-orchestration	Routes a game's player fantasy and loop into HUD, art, feedback and handoff

Font doctrine in brief. The authored source is doctrine/references/ai-slop-banned-fonts.md, and the hook reads its machine-readable mirror, ai-slop-banned-fonts.json (last synced 29 September 2026). Each ban carries a reason label: [AI] for an AI-ecosystem default, [POP] for a generic, overused face, [SYS] for a lazy system default and [HOUSE] for a house ruling.

• Hard ban: Inter, Geist (every cut), Roboto, Open Sans, Lato, Arial, Fraunces, and every face of IBM Plex.
• Secondary ban: Space Grotesk, Instrument Serif, Poppins, Montserrat, Nunito and Nunito Sans. On 29 September 2026 the list gained Newsreader, Cormorant, Cormorant Garamond, Crimson Pro, Space Mono, Plus Jakarta Sans, Instrument Sans, DM Sans, Outfit, Playfair Display and Lora.
• System stacks: a bare system stack used on its own is banned.
• Monospace: Roboto Mono and IBM Plex Mono are banned as deliberate monospace choices. JetBrains Mono and Fira Code are approved.
• Watchlist: Syne, DM Serif Display, DM Serif Text, Helvetica, Mona Sans, Recoleta and DejaVu Sans are not banned, but choosing one needs a stated human-design reason. They are next reviewed on 29 December 2026.

References

Everything below is cited in this repository: in skill references/, the doctrine, the governance registers, the continuous-improvement and audit records, THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md, and the my-10-kaizen commits of 29 September 2026. Books contributed only paraphrased, task-oriented guidance, and no extraction is stored here. The typeface folders under fonts/ are assets. Their MANIFEST.md files record licence classes but give no foundry or source URLs, so they are not listed as sources.

Books

• Adams, S. et al. (2012) Graphic Design Rules, Frances Lincoln
• Atkinson, C. (2011) Beyond Bullet Points, Microsoft Press
• Bell, A. and Pickering, H. Every Layout
• Ben-David, Y. (2026) The Fundamentals of UX Writing, Apress
• Bertin, J. Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps (French original Sémiologie graphique)
• Bodnar, K. and Cohen, J. (2012) The B2B Social Media Book
• Bonneville, D. N. The Big Book of Font Combinations
• Braganza, A. Looks Good to Me
• Branson (2020) UX/UI Design: Introduction Guide to Intuitive Design and User-Friendly Experience
• Bringhurst, R. The Elements of Typographic Style
• Buxton, B. (2007) Sketching User Experiences
• Cao, J., Zieba, K., Stryjewski, S. and Ellis, M. (2015) Web UI Design for the Human Eye, UXPin
• Chaffey, D. (2024) Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice
• Cook, P. (2022) Fundamentals of HTML, SVG, CSS and JavaScript for Data Visualisation, Leanpub
• Cooper, A., Reimann, R., Cronin, D. and Noessel, C. (2014) About Face: The Essentials of Interaction Design
• Crane, B. E. Infographics
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper Row
• Dannaway (2022) Practical UI
• Deacon (2020) UX and UI Design Strategy
• Devitt, Ryan et al. Arrive: A Design Innovation Framework to Deliver Breakthrough Services, Products and Experiences, Routledge
• Duarte, N. (2010) Resonate, Wiley
• Duarte, N. (2012) HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations
• Fekeshazi, Z. (c. 2017) Product Managers' Guide to UX Design, UX Studio
• Few, S. (2004) Show Me the Numbers, Analytics Press
• Few, S. (2006) Information Dashboard Design, Analytics Press
• Flux Academy (Segall, R. et al.) The Complete Guide for Choosing Colors
• Gothelf, J. and Seiden, J. (2021) Lean UX, 3rd edn, O'Reilly
• Graham, L. Basics of Design
• Grant, W. (2018) 101 UX Principles, Packt
• Gujral, R. The AI Instinct
• Hatton, A. (2007) The Definitive Business Pitch
• Hinton, A. (2010) "The story is the thing", in UX Storytellers: Connecting the Dots
• Hochuli, J. Detail in Typography
• Holmes, N. Joyful Infographics
• Hoskins, D. The Product-Minded Engineer
• IDEO.org The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design
• Itten, J. The Art of Color
• Keith, J. Resilient Web Design
• Kelley and Sheehan (c. 2021) Advertising Management in a Digital Environment, Routledge
• Kirk, A. et al. Data Visualization: Representing Information on Modern Web
• Klaff, O. (2011) Pitch Anything
• Klein, L. (2013) UX for Lean Startups, O'Reilly
• Knaflic, C. N. (2015) Storytelling with Data, Wiley
• Kocienda, K. (2018) Creative Selection, St. Martin's Press
• Kohavi, R., Tang, D. and Xu, Y. (2020) Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments
• Krug, S. (2010) Rocket Surgery Made Easy
• Krug, S. (2014) Don't Make Me Think, Revisited, New Riders
• Kuleszo How to Design Better UI Components 3.0 (2022, rev. 2024)
• Kupsh and Graves (1993) How to Create High-Impact Business Presentations, NTC Business Books
• LaGrone, B. (2016) Web Design Blueprints, Packt
• Landa, R. (2022) Strategic Creativity, Routledge
• Levy, J. (2015) UX Strategy, O'Reilly Media
• Lidwell, W., Holden, K. and Butler, J. (2010) Universal Principles of Design, Rockport
• Lupton, E. Thinking with Type
• Macfadyen (2025) Designing AI Interfaces, O'Reilly
• Macnab, M. Design by Nature, New Riders
• Maioli, L. (2018) Fixing Bad UX Designs, Packt
• Mall, D. Design That Scales
• Mangialardi, M. Design Systems for Developers
• Marcotte, E. Responsive Web Design
• McNeil, P. (2010) The Web Designer's Idea Book, Volume 2
• McNeil, P. (2013) The Web Designer's Idea Book, Volume 3, HOW Books
• Miller, C. H. Digital Storytelling
• Minto, B. The Pyramid Principle
• Mohan, S. Designing the AI-Driven Data Foundations
• Müller-Brockmann, J. (1981) Grid Systems in Graphic Design
• Munzner, T. (2014) Visualization Analysis and Design, CRC
• Nassery (2025) Next-Level A/B Testing
• Neil, T. (2014) Mobile Design Pattern Gallery, 2nd edn, O'Reilly
• Neumeier, M. The Brand Gap
• Norman, D. (2013) The Design of Everyday Things, Basic Books
• Osmani, A. (2026) Web Performance Engineering in the Age of AI, O'Reilly Media
• Paduraru (2024) Roots of UI/UX Design; Paduraru Fundamentals of Creating a Great UI/UX
• Panzarella (2022) UI/UX Web Design Simply Explained
• Pickering, H. Inclusive Components
• Plumley, G. (2011) Website Design and Development: 100 Questions to Ask Before Building a Website, Wiley
• Podmajersky, T. Strategic Writing for UX
• Randazzo, G. W. (2024) Winning Marketing Strategies Using Generative AI, Business Expert Press
• Reason, J. (1990) Human Error, Cambridge University Press
• Reynolds, G. Presentation Zen
• Ries, E. (2011) The Lean Startup
• Rosenfeld, L., Morville, P. and Arango, J. Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond, 4th edn
• Rubinelli, S. Institutional Health Communication in the Information Age
• Sadr, A. Designing for AI
• Saffer, D. Microinteractions
• Sandler, L. H. (2023) Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers: 100 Key Concepts
• Schwabish, J. Better Presentations
• Scott, B. and Neil, T. (2009) Designing Web Interfaces, O'Reilly
• Segall, R. Complete Guide to Choosing Fonts, Flux Academy
• Serling (ed.) (2002) How to Write Million Dollar Ads, Sales Letters and Web Marketing Pieces
• Skolnick, E. Video Game Storytelling
• Snyder, C. Paper Prototyping
• Sosulski, K. Data Visualization Made Simple
• Spencer, D. A Practical Guide to Information Architecture
• 3DTotal Dynamic Characters
• Tidwell, J., Brewer, C. and Valencia, A. (2020) Designing Interfaces, 3rd edn, O'Reilly
• Tufte, E. R. (1990) Envisioning Information, Graphics Press
• Tufte, E. R. (2001) The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edn, Graphics Press
• Tufte, E. R. (2006) Beautiful Evidence, Graphics Press
• Venkatesan, R. and Lecinski, J. (2026) The AI Marketing Canvas, 2nd edn, Stanford Business Books
• Vignelli, M. The Vignelli Canon
• Ware, C. (2004) Information Visualization: Perception for Design, Morgan Kaufmann
• Wathan, A. and Schoger, S. Refactoring UI
• Wiegers, K. Software Requirements Essentials
• Wildish, S. Chartography
• Wu and Liang (eds) (2026) Human-AI Interaction and Collaboration, Cambridge University Press
• Yablonski, J. (2024) Laws of UX
• Yau, N. Visualize This
• Zelazny, G. Say It with Charts
• Working texts recorded in the 2026 Kaizen records: Applying the Kaizen in Africa; LEAN: Ultimate Collection; Paid for Your Perspective

Repositories

The first eight entries are the repositories from the my-10-kaizen operation (29 September 2026) that this engine took something from. The other two studied in that operation, Superpowers and Graphify, contributed nothing here. Ideas were paraphrased, and no source code, data rows, palettes, font pairings or fixtures were copied. None of these repositories is authority for a design approval.

• Impeccable, https://github.com/pbakaus/impeccable (Apache-2.0, commit 114ea1d). Adapted: the rule and threshold ideas, waiver model and hook tiers in tools/slop-detector/ (chwezi-slop); the visitor-mode framing; the refinement verbs. Its font lists are evidence for bans only.
• UI UX Pro Max, https://github.com/nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill (MIT, commit 09170ee). Adapted: BM25 ranking with per-domain abstention floors, versioned calibration, the graded relevance harness and the catalogue query contract behind scripts/design_query.py. None of its font, palette or style data is reused.
• Ponytail, https://github.com/DietrichGebert/ponytail (MIT, commit e3ba2aa). Adapted: native-control sufficiency framing (accessibility-wcag-2-2-compliance/references/native-control-sufficiency.md).
• Understand Anything, https://github.com/Egonex-AI/Understand-Anything (MIT, commit b05cc3b). Adapted: the "graphs that teach" problem framing (data-visualization/references/relationship-diagrams-that-teach.md).
• Addy Osmani agent-skills, https://github.com/addyosmani/agent-skills (MIT, commit 2686b62). Adapted: owned-negative routing semantics from scripts/run-evals.js, applied in scripts/routing_smoke_test.py.
• Caveman, https://github.com/JuliusBrussee/caveman (split licence: MIT for the skill, BSL-1.1 for parts of the engine). Adapted: the report-only SKILL.md byte warning in scripts/validate_engine.py (idea only).
• Awesome Claude Skills, https://github.com/ComposioHQ/awesome-claude-skills (no root licence file). Used as a vetted pointer: it surfaced anydesign and the Anthropic canvas-design and theme-factory defaults recorded as ban evidence.
• Archify, https://github.com/tt-a1i/archify (MIT). Kaizen input for the diagram visual standards and the diagram-aware banned-font gate. No Archify code or default styling was adopted.
• anydesign, https://github.com/uxKero/anydesign (MIT, commit d81bd89). Adapted: the capture-budget and element-scope ideas in measured-style-pack.
• Anthropic skills, anthropics/skills (HEAD 3337550). The canvas-design bundled fonts and the theme-factory defaults, used as evidence for bans only.
• Anthropic Claude Cookbooks, anthropics/claude-cookbooks, "Prompting for frontend aesthetics" (last changed 944b94a). The model's own admission that it converges on certain faces, used as evidence for bans only.
• Mermaid, mermaid-js (develop, theme-default.js). Its default diagram font stack is recorded as ban-side evidence.
• Everything Claude Code (ECC), https://github.com/affaan-m/ECC. The MSYS2 path-conversion fix used in install.sh and the user/project scope choice in the installer.
• codex-astra-luna-orchestrator, https://github.com/donvito/codex-astra-luna-orchestrator (commit 21f4561). Concept reference for the Codex model-policy helper in .codex/.
• Chwezi Dev Engine, https://github.com/peterbamuhigire/chwezi-dev-engine. The TF-IDF routing ranker vendored with provenance into scripts/routing_smoke_test.py.

Standards and official sources

• W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, Recommendation (updated 12 December 2024; ISO/IEC 40500:2025), https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/, with Understanding and Quick Reference pages
• W3C, WCAG 3.0 Working Draft, https://www.w3.org/TR/wcag-3.0/, recorded as a draft that does not replace 2.2
• W3C, WAI-ARIA 1.2 and the ARIA Authoring Practices Guide, https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/
• WHATWG, HTML Living Standard, https://html.spec.whatwg.org/
• W3C CSS specifications: CSS Color 4 (OKLCH) and CSS View Transitions Levels 1 and 2
• ISO 14289-2:2024 (PDF/UA-2); ISO 9241-161:2025 (visual user-interface elements)
• PDF/X-1a and PDF/X-4 print exchange formats; the ISO 12647 series for offset print conditions
• Design Tokens Community Group format
• Google web.dev: Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS at the 75th percentile), INP replacing FID (12 March 2024), Baseline, performance budgets, https://web.dev/articles/vitals
• Apple Human Interface Guidelines, Liquid Glass documentation, SwiftUI and SF Symbols, https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/
• Google Material 3 and Material 3 Expressive, https://m3.material.io/; Jetpack Compose documentation
• GOV.UK Design System, date input component and dates pattern, https://design-system.service.gov.uk/
• Microsoft accessibility guidance for Word and PowerPoint (support.microsoft.com)
• SIL Open Font License 1.1, https://openfontlicense.org
• Section 508 and the ADA (enterprise accessibility verification)
• Healthcare: HIPAA, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, IEC 62366-1 usability engineering (cited in-repo as ISO 62366-1), HL7 FHIR
• Uganda, Data Protection and Privacy Act, 2019 (ULII consolidated text)
• ISO 4217 (currency codes), ISO 8601 (dates) and ISO 216 (paper sizes)
• Research papers: Cleveland and McGill (1984) "Graphical Perception", JASA; Mackinlay (1986) "Automating the Design of Graphical Presentations", ACM ToG; Miller (1956) "The magical number seven, plus or minus two", Psychological Review; Cowan (2001) "The magical number 4 in short-term memory"; Sweller (1988) "Cognitive load during problem solving"; Amershi et al. (2019) "Guidelines for Human-AI Interaction", CHI; Rodden, Hutchinson and Fu (2010) HEART framework, Google; Nielsen and Molich, heuristic evaluation

Websites and articles

• Nielsen Norman Group: 10 usability heuristics, severity ratings, response-time limits, generative UI, neobrutalism, State of UX 2026, https://www.nngroup.com/
• Tognazzini, First Principles of Interaction Design (revised)
• Butterick, Practical Typography, https://practicaltypography.com/; The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web, http://webtypography.net/
• Laws of UX, lawsofux.com; Utopia fluid type and space calculator, https://utopia.fyi; Atomic Design, atomicdesign.bradfrost.com
• Google PAIR, People + AI Guidebook; Stanford Web Credibility Project (Fogg et al., 2002)
• MDN Web Docs: Popover API, variable fonts, scroll-driven animations, prefers-reduced-motion, date input, https://developer.mozilla.org/
• Chrome for Developers, "View transitions in 2025"; web.dev on WebGPU, variable fonts, CLS and prefers-reduced-motion
• WebAIM: The WebAIM Million (2025 and 2026) and the contrast checker, https://webaim.org/; TPGi Colour Contrast Analyser; Coblis and Vischeck colour-blindness simulators; The A11Y Project
• GSMA, The State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2025
• Colour tools: Coolors, Adobe Color, Paletton, ColorHexa, Name That Color (chir.ag), Image Color Picker; Interaction Design Foundation on colour theory; Empower on colour psychology
• Eleken blog: design consistency, design-system checklist, "Making it like Stripe", banking app design, dashboard examples, onboarding, UX improvements, AI design workflow, https://www.eleken.co/
• Design Studio UI/UX blog: dashboard, generative-AI UI, SaaS design and cost, mobile app examples, onboarding, navigation, web-app patterns, https://www.designstudiouiux.com/
• Studio and award benchmarks: Pentagram, IDEO, Instrument, MetaLab, Clay, Work & Co, Koto, AREA 17, Active Theory, Locomotive, Resn, Hello Monday, BUCK; Awwwards, Apple Design Awards, D&AD Pencils, CSS Design Awards, The FWA, The Webby Awards
• Craft references: Stripe (design blog; "Behind the gradient"), Linear, Vercel Geist, Figma ("How we built the Figma design team")
• Trade press: Apple Newsroom (June 2025 software design), Google Blog and TechCrunch on Material 3 Expressive, MacStories on bento layouts, LogRocket on web brutalism, Smashing Magazine on agentic AI UX, Creative Boom on 2026 design trends, StudioMeyer on bento grids, It's Nice That, LBBonline, Fortune on IDEO, TechCrunch on Ueno
• Presentation craft: Slideworks on action titles; Barbara Minto; the InfoVis Wiki on the data-ink ratio
• Tooling documentation: Motion easing functions, GSAP licensing (and Webflow's announcement), three.js, React Three Fiber, Typst, Quarto, Tailwind CSS configuration, AI SDK generative UI, OpenAI image-generation and image-prompting guides
• Legal directories cited for local search: Martindale-Hubbell, Avvo