| name | design-debate |
| description | Use when a design direction is uncertain, when the team could go multiple ways, or when the user wants to see competing approaches argued before committing — orchestrates structured debate between agents who advocate for different directions |
Design Debate
Good design decisions come from tension, not consensus. When agents converge too quickly, they optimise for agreement instead of the best answer. This skill creates productive conflict — agents argue for competing directions with real trade-offs, and the user decides.
When to Use
- When the design-strategist identifies multiple viable directions
- When the design-lead proposes a visual direction and alternatives exist
- When the user says "I'm not sure which way to go" or "what are my options?"
- When the design-critic recommends "rethink" — a debate can surface the better path
- When a decision has significant downstream consequences (navigation pattern, layout model, interaction paradigm)
- When the user explicitly asks for a debate: "debate this", "argue both sides", "what are the trade-offs?"
Do Not Use When
- The decision is trivial (icon choice, exact padding value)
- Accessibility requirements dictate the answer — there is nothing to debate
- The user has already made up their mind — respect their direction
- The brief clearly specifies the approach — follow it
Process
Step 1: Frame the Question
Define the design question precisely. A debate without a clear question produces noise.
Format:
DESIGN QUESTION: [Specific, answerable question]
CONTEXT: [Brief context from design-state.md]
CONSTRAINTS: [Non-negotiable requirements from brief, accessibility, taste profile]
STAKES: [Why this decision matters — what it affects downstream]
Example:
DESIGN QUESTION: Should the onboarding flow use a multi-step wizard or a single scrollable page?
CONTEXT: App for first-time pet owners, ages 25-45. Primary persona has mild anxiety about "doing it right."
CONSTRAINTS: Must be completable in under 3 minutes. Must work on mobile. Must not require account creation upfront.
STAKES: Sets the interaction pattern for all future multi-step flows in the app.
Step 2: Assign Advocates
Select 2-3 agents to argue for different directions. Each agent argues FOR their assigned position — they are advocates, not neutral analysts.
| Role | What They Argue |
|---|
| Advocate A | The case for Direction A — strengths, evidence, personas it serves best |
| Advocate B | The case for Direction B — strengths, evidence, personas it serves best |
| Advocate C (optional) | A third direction, a hybrid, or a "neither — here's why" position |
Assign agents based on their expertise:
| Agent | Best suited to advocate for |
|---|
| design-strategist | UX patterns, information architecture, user flow approaches |
| design-lead | Visual directions, layout models, component architecture |
| content-writer | Content strategy approaches, tone directions, naming conventions |
| motion-designer | Interaction paradigms, feedback models, transition approaches |
| accessibility-reviewer | The most inclusive option, cognitive load implications |
| design-scout | Evidence-backed positions from competitive research |
Step 3: Run the Debate
Each advocate delivers their argument in this format:
## [Agent Name] argues for: [Direction]
### The Case
[2-3 paragraphs making the strongest possible argument for this direction.
Be specific — reference the brief, personas, principles, and evidence.]
### Who This Serves Best
[Which personas benefit most and why]
### Who This Serves Least
[Which personas might struggle and why — be honest]
### Trade-Offs
[What you give up by choosing this direction]
### Evidence
[Research, patterns, competitive examples, or design principles that support this]
Rules for advocates:
- Argue to win — make the strongest case you can. Do not hedge
- Be honest about weaknesses — a strong argument acknowledges its trade-offs
- Reference the brief — ground arguments in the project's actual goals
- Reference personas — every argument must address who it helps and who it doesn't
- No straw men — do not weaken the opposing position to make yours look better
Step 4: Cross-Examination
After all advocates present, each gets one round of rebuttal:
### [Agent Name] responds to [Other Agent]:
[1-2 paragraphs directly addressing the strongest point of the opposing argument.
Concede what is true. Challenge what is weak.]
This prevents echo-chamber advocacy — each agent must engage with the other side's best arguments.
Step 5: Accessibility Check
Before presenting to the user, the accessibility-reviewer evaluates all proposed directions:
## Accessibility Assessment
| Direction | Accessibility Impact | Concern Level |
|-----------|---------------------|---------------|
| Direction A | [Assessment] | Low / Medium / High |
| Direction B | [Assessment] | Low / Medium / High |
[If any direction creates accessibility barriers, flag it clearly.
This is not an argument for a direction — it is a constraint check.]
If a direction has High accessibility concern, it should be flagged prominently in the presentation to the user. The user can still choose it, but they should know the cost.
Step 6: Present to User
Show the debate to the user in a structured format:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DESIGN DEBATE
Question: [The design question]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
DIRECTION A: [Name]
Argued by: [agent]
[2-3 sentence summary of the case]
Best for: [personas]
Trade-off: [key trade-off]
DIRECTION B: [Name]
Argued by: [agent]
[2-3 sentence summary of the case]
Best for: [personas]
Trade-off: [key trade-off]
[DIRECTION C if applicable]
ACCESSIBILITY: [One-line summary of any concerns]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
YOUR CALL: Which direction do you want to take?
(You can also ask for more detail on any direction,
or propose a hybrid.)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Step 7: Record the Decision
After the user decides:
- Record the chosen direction in
design-state.md Decisions Log with rationale
- Record the rejected directions and why — this is valuable context for future debates
- If the decision reveals a taste preference, update
design-memory
- Dispatch the appropriate agent to execute the chosen direction
Debate Depth
Not every debate needs the full process. Scale the depth to the stakes:
| Stakes | Debate Format |
|---|
| High (sets architectural pattern) | Full debate: 2-3 advocates, cross-examination, accessibility review |
| Medium (affects multiple screens) | Quick debate: 2 advocates, no cross-examination, accessibility flag |
| Low (affects one component) | Micro debate: 2 options presented as a simple comparison table, user picks |
Integration
- Called by:
design-strategy, design-discovery (when user requests debate), design-critic (when "rethink" is recommended)
- Calls: Any agent as advocate,
accessibility-reviewer for constraint check
- Updates:
design-state with decision and rejected alternatives
- Informs:
design-memory with taste signals from the user's choice
- Pairs with:
design-strategy, design-memory, taste-feedback, tradeoff-analysis
Anti-Patterns
| Pattern | Why It Fails |
|---|
| Debating after the user has decided | Wastes time. If the user has a direction, execute it |
| Debating trivial decisions | 8px vs 12px padding is not a debate — it's a design system decision |
| Agents being polite instead of advocating | "Both options are great!" is not a debate. Agents must argue to win |
| Presenting a debate without accessibility review | Every direction must be evaluated for inclusion before the user chooses |
| Running a debate in auto mode without pausing | Debates ALWAYS pause for user decision — they are inherently direct-mode moments |
| More than 3 directions | Too many options cause decision paralysis. If there are more than 3, narrow down first |
