Design Loop

Four phases: interview, preflight, teardown, loop. Do not skip ahead. Do not start building during phases 1 to 3.

Phase 1: Interview

Ask exactly these three, together, then stop and wait.

1. What are you building, and how long or how big?
2. Name something that already does this brilliantly. A site, a video, a doc, anything I can open. If nothing comes to mind, say skip.
3. Any files I should work from? Design system, brand doc, script, existing draft.

If they name something vague ("Apple's website", "good SaaS design"), push once for the specific page or file. A vague bar is the number one reason this method fails: the critic invents a comparison and approves everything on round one.

If they say skip on question 2, propose three candidate bars, one line each on why, and wait. If they do not answer, take the hardest one.

Phase 2: Preflight

A check, not a question. Run it before any work and report in one block.