self-assessment
Self-Assessment
Know your gaps. Practice the right thing.
How to use
/self-assessmentGenerate a taste self-assessment for the user.
Constraints
Six Skill Areas
Rate 1-5 on each:
- Seeing: Can you spot spacing inconsistencies, hierarchy issues, and craft details without being told?
- Comparing: Can you rank solutions and explain the ranking beyond personal preference?
- Deconstructing: Can you reverse-engineer the constraints and decisions behind a design?
- Collecting: Do you have an organized, principle-tagged reference library you can search in 60 seconds?
- Articulating: Can you explain design decisions without saying "it feels right"?
- Applying: Does your first design instinct usually turn out to be correct?
Interpreting Results
- Lowest score = where to focus. Don't improve everything at once.
- High Seeing + Low Articulating = good instincts, can't convince anyone. Focus on vocabulary.
- High Collecting + Low Applying = great references, own work doesn't match. Focus on deconstruction.
- Even scores across the board (all 2s or 3s) = the plateau. Go deep in any one area.
- MUST retake every 3 months. Taste develops too slowly to notice daily.
Anti-Patterns
- Overrating yourself on every dimension
- Skipping the assessment and jumping straight to exercises
- Focusing only on strengths instead of weaknesses
More from dragoon0x/taste-skills
visual-audit
The 10-second design audit. Look at any design and name what's working and what's not within seconds. Trains rapid pattern recognition for hierarchy, spacing, type, and color. Use when evaluating designs quickly, giving first-impression feedback, or building perception speed.
21motion-design
Animation as communication. Feedback, orientation, emphasis, delight. If motion doesn't serve one of these four purposes, it shouldn't exist. Use when evaluating animation quality, designing transitions, or deciding whether motion adds or subtracts.
15taste-as-strategy
Use taste as a competitive moat and business advantage. In the AI and vibe-coding era, execution is commoditized. Taste is the defensible edge. Use when advising founders on product differentiation, building product culture, evaluating why some products win despite fewer features, or understanding taste as a strategic asset.
15teaching-taste
Help other designers develop judgment without imposing your style. Use when mentoring designers, running design education, or building team-wide quality standards.
15tradeoff-assessment
Name what was prioritized, what was sacrificed, and whether the tradeoff was right. Every design decision trades something. Use when evaluating design decisions, defending choices, or helping teams understand what they're giving up.
14field-notes
Structured taste breakdowns of real products. The format for making taste observations legible and shareable. Use when analyzing products, writing case studies, documenting design observations, or teaching through example.
14