Brainstorm and prototypes

The user has unknown knowns: criteria they can't verbalize but will recognize on sight. Finding those during prototyping is cheap; finding them mid-implementation is expensive, because small spec changes can mean drastically different code. Give them things to react to.

Steps

1. Establish scope first: what is being decided (layout? approach? data model? tone?) and what is explicitly out of scope. One decision per round.
2. Produce 3-5 variations that are wildly different, not shades of the same idea. If two variations would get the same reaction, replace one.
3. Make them cheap and disposable:
   • Visual/UX → a single self-contained HTML file with fake data, no backend, no state.
   • Approaches → a one-screen sketch of each: the idea, what it optimizes for, its sharpest tradeoff.
   • Ranked lists → order from cheapest to most ambitious so the user can draw their line.
4. Label each variation with the belief it bets on ("this one assumes density beats whitespace"), so the user's reaction reveals the underlying criterion, not just a preference.
5. Collect reactions, then verbalize what was learned: "you consistently rejected X, which suggests the real requirement is Y." That sentence is the deliverable — it becomes part of the spec.

Guardrails