| name | fog-show |
| description | Resolve taste the user can't verbalize by showing contrasting throwaway artifacts. Use when a FOG.md item is tagged → show, or the requirement is look, feel, or tone the user will only recognize on sight. |
Fog Show
Never ask the user to verbalize taste — "what does modern mean to you?" produces noise. Show, and read the reaction.
One decision per round: one axis a reaction can be attributed to, every other property held constant. Produce 3–5 variations that are wildly different, not shades — if you can't name a plausible user who would react differently to two of them, replace one. Note the belief each bets on ("this one bets density beats whitespace") in the filename or your notes — never inside the artifact, so the reaction is to the artifact, not the thesis.
Cheap and disposable: visual → one self-contained HTML file, fake data, no wiring; approaches → a one-screen sketch each (the idea, what it optimizes for, its sharpest tradeoff).
The deliverable is a sentence, not the artifact: "you consistently rejected X, so the real requirement is Y." Write it to the ledger as resolved — it is now spec — and delete the probes; the sentence is the only survivor. Reactions that reveal new unknowns become Open items with resolvers.
If nothing lands, the decision space was framed wrong: derive the new axis from the rejection reasons — when every rejection complains about the same non-axis property, that property is the real decision — and rerun.
