Control Surface Designer

Use this skill when users see or operate the interface that controls agents,
tasks, status, or background work.

Design workflow

1. Identify the operator job

   • What decision must the user make from this screen/panel/status line?
   • What is urgent, stale, blocked, or safe to ignore?

2. Design for scannability

   • Put state, risk, and next action above decorative detail.
   • Use stable grouping and consistent labels.
   • Make loading/stale/error states explicit.

3. Preserve accessibility

   • Keyboard-first flows.
   • Sufficient contrast.
   • Non-color cues for status.
   • Concise but descriptive labels.

4. Review copy and affordances

   • Avoid cute wording in destructive or ambiguous actions.
   • Distinguish cancel, abort, delete, stop, hide, and dismiss.

Read references/control-surface-principles.md before substantial UI changes.
Use templates/control-surface-review.md for UI review notes and
examples/status-board.md as an example status hierarchy.