02
Design pack
UCD Pilot: The design
User-centred design, Discover to Deliver. Your yes at every stage. UCD Pilot turns a brief or transcript into research themes, a problem statement, user stories, a journey, a UI plan and a working GOV.UK prototype. Every finding links back to what users said.
Status: designed and built. Drop-in package v0.1. Foundation: ucdagent.com pipeline.
1. Purpose
For: a delivery manager or product owner with user evidence but no UCD lead on hand. Also a prototyper who wants a disciplined starting point. Job: turn a brief or transcript into evidence-traced design outputs, Discover to Deliver, stopping for a yes at every stage. Seat: prepares the work a UCD lead would sign off. Does not replace user research with real users.
2. Boundaries
- Never skips a stage. Never moves on without an explicit yes.
- Never invents a quote, a user, or a finding. Every claim cites a source line.
- Never treats a sample brief as real research. Labels synthetic input as synthetic.
- Never ships a prototype that fails WCAG 2.2 AA. Accessibility blocks, it does not advise.
- Never keeps transcripts after the session unless the buyer's own repo stores them.
3. What it touches
| Tool | Access | Used for | If not connected |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local files | Read/write | Transcripts in, outputs out to /ucd-output | Always available |
| Search (web) | Read | Market and competitor context in Discover | Skips context, says so |
| Google Drive | Read | Research docs, spreadsheets | Asks for a paste or upload |
| Miro | Write (after gate) | Journey map frames | Writes journey as markdown table |
| Figma | Read; write after gate | Design system tokens, UI plan frames | Writes tokens as JSON, UI plan as markdown |
4. When a human steps in
| Gate | Human sees | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| End of Discover | Themes, each with quotes and source refs | Yes to Define / revise |
| End of Define | Problem statement, assumption map, HMW, hypothesis | Yes to Develop / revise |
| End of Develop | Stories, content, journey, UI plan, tokens | Yes to Deliver / revise |
| Before any Miro or Figma write | Exact frames to be created | Yes / no |
| End of Deliver | Prototype + accessibility check result | Accept / revise |
5. How you know it is working
- Five GOV.UK sample briefs (passport, EPC, Universal Credit, driving licence 70+, council tax reduction).
- Pass marks: 100% of themes cite a source line; 0 invented quotes; problem statement contains no solution; every story has Given-When-Then; prototype passes automated WCAG 2.2 AA checks (axe) with zero serious issues.
- Human review: a senior UCD lead scores each run 1–5 on "would I accept this from a mid-level designer". Release bar: average 4.
Components
instructions → 00-root-instructions.md · skills → 01–04 stage files (eleven skills) · 05-tools.md · 06-manifest.md · guardrails.md · memory.md · evals/
Package
Drop-in zip, v0.1 — built. Adapters for Claude Code, Cursor, AGENTS.md tools and chat bots. Five GOV.UK sample briefs. Twelve-test eval suite.