xyne-spaces: Skill for Claude Code

Xyne usability principles

Ten principles drawn from recurring product feedback and checked against research. They exist because the same problems keep coming back: screens that load forever, Back buttons that loop, features nobody finds, themes nobody tested, automated changes nobody could edit first. Use them for two jobs: designing something new, and reviewing something that exists. The walkthrough is the method; the principles are the lens.

The ten principles

Each has a sentence to remember and the checks that make it concrete. Use the numbers: "it feels slow" is an opinion, "no feedback for 3 s after Save" is a finding someone can fix.

Performance — references/1-performance.md

1. Speed is felt, not measured. Show something within a second, and show progress for anything longer.
   • About 0.1 s feels instant; under 1 s needs no indicator; 1–10 s needs one; past 10 s needs percent done and a way to keep working.
   • Render the shell and cached data first. One slow query must not blank the whole page.
   • Uploads show bytes or percent. Search returns exact matches first, in under a second.
2. What is on screen must match reality. Stale views and silent delays cost trust, not just time.
   • Anything that can change behind the user (feeds, threads, counts) updates itself, or says "updated 2 min ago".
   • The user's own action shows at once and reconciles with the server afterwards.
   • Judge it on a slow network and a phone, not on office wifi.

Flow — references/2-flow.md

1. Judge the whole journey, not the screen. Make the common path one action and keep the user's place when the view changes.
   • Count the main task's steps: clicks, fields, page changes, decisions. Each one adds time (the keystroke-level model), and a decision with more options takes longer to make (Hick's law).
   • The default is the most common intent; the other options are one click away.
   • Scroll position, selected tab, filters and drafts survive mode changes, navigation and reload.
   • Nothing the user is looking at moves or reorders by itself; leave room for content that loads late.
2. Never trap people. Back always goes back, and every choice can be undone.
   • Back or Escape reverses every navigation-like change (a panel, a filter, a wizard step), and never loops.
   • Keep the main button enabled; on press, point at what's missing and focus it.
   • "Hide" and "dismiss" come with Undo, and a place to find hidden things again.