| name | visual-product-slop-audit |
| description | Use when auditing imagery, brand assets, UI screens, or AI product features for visual and product slop. Unlike ai-slop-typography-audit, this excludes type; written-copy slop routes to the digital-research engine. |
| metadata | {"portable":true,"category":"00-cross-cutting-ops-qa-a11y","compatible_with":["claude-code","codex"]} |
Visual & Product Slop Audit
Acknowledgement: Shared by Peter Bamuhigire, techguypeter.com.
Use When
- Reviewing AI-generated or AI-assisted imagery, key art, thumbnails, or brand/marketing assets.
- Auditing a UI screen or a product feature that embeds generative AI.
- Gate-checking any visual deliverable before it ships under the Chwezi name.
- Checking a specific artifact against the current slop doctrine after the doctrine has already
been refreshed.
Do Not Use When
-
The concern is the typeface/type system — use ai-slop-typography-audit.
-
The concern is written copy (preambles, buzzword salad, vague attribution) — that is a writing
concern owned by the digital-research-engine (anti-ai-slop); route there.
-
The question is whether the definition of AI slop, a banned font, or a current visual tell has
changed - use slop-doctrine-refresh-and-research-loop first, then return here for artifact
audit.
Required Inputs
| Input | Supplied by | Required? | Why |
|---|
| Assets, screens, or live feature | Requester | yes | Defines the audit surface |
| Audience, channel, and stakes | Product or brand brief | yes | Calibrates severity |
| Current slop taxonomy | Design doctrine | yes | Prevents stale or invented tells |
- The asset(s) or screens (images, mockups, the live UI, or a description of the feature).
- The context and audience, and whether it is public-facing (raises the bar — corporate slop is
the highest-backlash failure, per
doctrine/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md).
Workflow
- Run the visual tells checklist (
references/visual-tells-checklist.md, which operationalises
ai-slop-taxonomy.md → Visual & video tells): waxy skin, melted backgrounds, gibberish text,
floating objects, extra fingers/impossible anatomy, warped/misspelled logos, uncanny faces,
mismatched lighting. Current 2026 AI-image tells (the classic six-finger artifact is largely
fixed in late-2025/2026 models, so the tells migrated): plastic "default-render" lighting & creamy
bokeh, texture-too-perfect / uniform-frequency detail, micro-anatomy & accessory errors visible
only on zoom (teeth, earrings, watch faces, fused hair), garbled small text / UI chrome / gauges,
impossible reflections & re-tiling patterns, and the "no-author" style-blend aesthetic — perfect,
even, styleless competence that looks made by nobody. The 2026 rule of thumb: the tell is now the
absence of authored specificity, not a hard anomaly.
- Run the product/interface tells checklist: AI feature where nav/search was faster;
ungrounded chatbot that can invent commitments; generative output with no verifiability/undo;
decorative "AI" badges/gradients with no user benefit.
- Classify each finding — critical (public-facing visual anomaly, warped logo, halluc
inating bot) vs major/minor.
- Decide remake vs remediate. Anomalous AI imagery is remade or replaced (art-directed,
or real photography/illustration), not patched. Product slop is removed or grounded.
- State the human-craft alternative — what a skilled designer would ship instead (per the
Mission: distinct, authored, not templated).
- Report findings → fixes with before/after.
Anti-Patterns
- "Touching up" a six-fingered hero image instead of remaking it.
- Keeping an AI feature because it's impressive when a search bar served users better.
- Treating an AI gradient/badge as design.
- Declaring any polished generated image slop without naming a concrete tell and evidence.
- Spot-fixing anatomy, text, or logo corruption instead of remaking the source asset.
Quality Standards
- Inspect focal details at delivery resolution and evaluate the feature in its actual flow.
- Separate anomalies, convergence, provenance gaps, and product-risk findings.
- Block public release for corrupted identity, anatomy, text, or ungrounded consequential output.
Outputs
| Output | Consumer | Evidence / acceptance |
|---|
| Severity-rated finding register | Designer and owner | Asset location, tell, evidence, and taxonomy mapping |
| Remake/remediate disposition | Production team | Named human-craft alternative for every finding |
| Gate verdict | Pre-launch QA | PASS, CONDITIONAL, or BLOCKED with unresolved risks |
- A findings list (tagged critical/major/minor with the tell it breaks) and a stated,
human-craft remediation ready to apply.
Examples
- See
examples/slop-audit-filled.md for a complete severity and disposition register.
Decision Rules
| Condition | Decision | Wrong-choice failure |
|---|
| Identity, anatomy, or embedded text is corrupted | Remake or replace and block ship | Visible anomaly damages trust |
| Asset is competent but unauthored and generic | Re-art-direct with a specific point of view | Convergent brand work ships |
| AI feature lacks grounding, verification, or undo | Remove or ground it | Generated output is treated as fact |
| Evidence is ambiguous | Mark conditional and seek source/provenance | Suspicion is presented as proof |
Capability Contract
Read and high-resolution visual inspection are required. Review is read-only unless remediation is authorised. Network access is optional for provenance checks; editing or generation must preserve brand and usage rights.
Degraded Mode
Without original-resolution assets or live-flow access, audit the supplied evidence, mark hidden details unverified, and withhold a pass. Recover by requesting crops, source files, or a recorded walkthrough.
examples/slop-audit-filled.md — a real before/after audit of a Maduuka landing-page hero +
embedded AI chat panel: findings (tagged critical/major/minor) → remake/remediate dispositions
with the human-craft alternative named for each.
References
references/visual-tells-checklist.md — the concrete, tickable image + product/interface tells
(incl. the current 2026 AI-image tells), citing the taxonomy.doctrine/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md, doctrine/design-doctrine.md (Mission).doctrine/references/living-slop-refresh-protocol.md and
slop-doctrine-refresh-and-research-loop for refreshing changing slop definitions.- Sibling audits:
ai-slop-typography-audit (type); digital-research anti-ai-slop (writing).
