2026-10-04-fresh-ux-direction

Decision

Chess gets a new UX, drawn from how a chess player uses a board, and not a redraw of the four screens the app has.

Why

The app works and its rules are sound, but the screens were built around the code, not the player:

• Home is four mode cards. There is nowhere to choose a colour or a clock, so the human is always White and there is no clock.
• A game that is interrupted is lost. Only the mode and the level are saved.
• A pawn always becomes a queen.
• The result is a card over the board, and both draw rules read "Game Over!".
• The full-screen ad lands on the result 1.2 seconds after the game ends.
• The app is dark whatever the phone's theme, and its board loses width to a border.

The owner asked for a fresh design set as stage 1 of the pipeline in ~/git/products/CLAUDE.md, to be reviewed before any app code changes.

Impact

• .context/designs/mobile/ is the spec once approved. Until then every screen is status: "review".
• The look is Chess's own: parchment and felt green, brass for the move, and a board that takes 368 of 390 points. See reserved-colour.
• The journey is Splash, Home, New game, the board, a result. Resume is first on Home when a game exists.
• The full list of what the code has against what the drawings ask is current-app-vs-new-design. Each line of it is a page under features/.
• No code under src/ was changed. routes.js records in missing each place the drawing is ahead of the app.

Status

Active. Awaiting the owner's design review — T001 in tasks.md.

Sources

• .context/designs/mobile/routes.js
• src/app/index.tsx, src/app/game.tsx, src/store/gameStore.ts