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ux-direction

Decisionverified 2026-10-04

A new UX built around how a player uses a board

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.