Variant explorer — several real options, cheap enough to discard

"Show me a few versions and I'll pick" is a different request from "build this". It asks for divergence: several candidates that are actually different, each cheap enough that throwing it away costs nothing, with the difference between them stated out loud so a human can decide.

Done badly it produces the thing that wastes the most time in creative work: three variations of one idea, dressed up as a choice.

The one rule

Variants must differ in a decision, not in a detail. If two candidates could both be reached by editing the other, there is one candidate.

Not variants:   the same layout in blue, in green, in dark
Variants:       a single scrolling page · a three-step wizard · a table with inline editing