Critique like a designer

"It looks off" is useless — to a designer, and doubly so to Claude. Vague dissatisfaction produces vague revisions. The skill that separates people who get good output from people who get lucky output is measurable feedback: name the element, state what you observe (with a number when possible), and say what to do about it.

Anthropic's own guidance for its design product says exactly this: feedback like "8px of space between the form fields" moves the work; "the spacing looks wrong" moves nothing.

The critique formula

Every line of a useful critique has three parts:

1. The element. "The hero headline" — not "the top part".
2. The measurable observation. "is 22px while the section heading below it is 34px" — not "feels small".
3. The instruction. "Invert the relationship: headline at 48px minimum, section heading at 28px."

Element, observation, instruction. Written that way, a critique is also a prompt — paste it back at Claude and the revision is exactly what you asked for.

The exercise: five flaws

This page has exactly five planted problems. Every one of them is findable with the vocabulary you already have from this module — hierarchy, competing accents, spacing, contrast, consistency. Open the lightbox and study it before reading on.

Write your critique as five lines, each using the formula: element, measurable observation, instruction. Numbers beat impressions — "roughly 4px of gap" is a fine measurement; "cramped" alone is not.

If you see

Compare your five against the planted list: (1) Hierarchy — the page title is 22px while "Why Ember Roast" below it is 34px; the most important text on the page is the smallest heading on it. (2) Competing accents — teal buttons and orange links/numbers both claim attention; pick one accent and demote the other to neutral. (3) Spacing — the hero stacks its title, paragraph, and buttons with 4–6px gaps while the section below breathes; space communicates grouping, and here everything is one clump. (4) Contrast — the body text is light warm gray on a cream ground, far below comfortable reading contrast; darken it until it reads effortlessly. (5) Consistency — three different corner radii (2px cards, 12px small buttons, fully-round main button) on one screen; one radius, everywhere. Finding five different real issues also counts — the formula is the lesson, not the answer key.

Why this matters for everything after

From module 2 on, you will be directing Claude constantly — and every direction you give is a critique of what it just made. People who can only say "better, but still off" loop forever. People who can say "the accent appears eleven times; cut it to three" converge in one revision.

You will also meet this skill again from the other side: in module 5 you will teach Claude to critique its own screenshots against your rules, using exactly this formula.