I Distill

Remove unnecessary complexity from designs, revealing the essential elements and creating clarity through ruthless simplification.

MANDATORY PREPARATION

Context Gathering (Do This First)

You cannot do a great job without having necessary context, such as target audience (critical), desired use-cases (critical), and understanding what's truly essential vs nice-to-have for this product.

Attempt to gather these from the current thread or codebase.

1. If you don't find exact information and have to infer from existing design and functionality, you MUST STOP and ask the user directly to clarify what you cannot infer. whether you got it right.
2. Otherwise, if you can't fully infer or your level of confidence is medium or lower, you MUST ask the user directly to clarify what you cannot infer. clarifying questions first to complete your context.

Do NOT proceed until you have answers. Simplifying the wrong things destroys usability.

Use frontend-design skill

Use the i-frontend-design skill for design principles and anti-patterns. Do NOT proceed until it has executed and you know all DO's and DON'Ts.

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Assess Current State

Analyze what makes the design feel complex or cluttered:

1. Identify complexity sources:

   • Too many elements: Competing buttons, redundant information, visual clutter
   • Excessive variation: Too many colors, fonts, sizes, styles without purpose
   • Information overload: Everything visible at once, no progressive disclosure
   • Visual noise: Unnecessary borders, shadows, backgrounds, decorations
   • Confusing hierarchy: Unclear what matters most
   • Feature creep: Too many options, actions, or paths forward

2. Find the essence:

   • What's the primary user goal? (There should be ONE)
   • What's actually necessary vs nice-to-have?
   • What can be removed, hidden, or combined?
   • What's the 20% that delivers 80% of value?

If any of these are unclear from the codebase, ask the user directly to clarify what you cannot infer.

CRITICAL: Simplicity is not about removing features - it's about removing obstacles between users and their goals. Every element should justify its existence.

Plan Simplification

Create a ruthless editing strategy:

• Core purpose: What's the ONE thing this should accomplish?
• Essential elements: What's truly necessary to achieve that purpose?
• Progressive disclosure: What can be hidden until needed?
• Consolidation opportunities: What can be combined or integrated?

IMPORTANT: Simplification is hard. It requires saying no to good ideas to make room for great execution. Be ruthless.

Simplify the Design

Systematically remove complexity across these dimensions:

Information Architecture

• Reduce scope: Remove secondary actions, optional features, redundant information
• Progressive disclosure: Hide complexity behind clear entry points (accordions, modals, step-through flows)
• Combine related actions: Merge similar buttons, consolidate forms, group related content
• Clear hierarchy: ONE primary action, few secondary actions, everything else tertiary or hidden
• Remove redundancy: If it's said elsewhere, don't repeat it here

Visual Simplification

• Reduce color palette: Use 1-2 colors plus neutrals, not 5-7 colors
• Limit typography: One font family, 3-4 sizes maximum, 2-3 weights
• Remove decorations: Eliminate borders, shadows, backgrounds that don't serve hierarchy or function
• Flatten structure: Reduce nesting, remove unnecessary containers—never nest cards inside cards
• Remove unnecessary cards: Cards aren't needed for basic layout; use spacing and alignment instead
• Consistent spacing: Use one spacing scale, remove arbitrary gaps

Layout Simplification

• Linear flow: Replace complex grids with simple vertical flow where possible
• Remove sidebars: Move secondary content inline or hide it
• Full-width: Use available space generously instead of complex multi-column layouts
• Consistent alignment: Pick left or center, stick with it
• Generous white space: Let content breathe, don't pack everything tight