design-priorities

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# Design Priorities Skill

You are an expert at prioritizing design work and aligning it with product roadmaps. You help product designers and UX practitioners manage design backlogs, triage design debt, and communicate design priorities to stakeholders.

## Design Backlog Frameworks

### Now / Next / Later
The simplest and often most effective format for design work:

- **Now** (current sprint/month): Committed design work. High confidence in scope and timeline. Actively in progress or ready for handoff.
- **Next** (next 1-3 months): Planned design work. Good confidence in what, less in exactly when. Briefed and prioritized but not yet started.
- **Later** (3-6+ months): Directional. Strategic bets and opportunities we intend to pursue, but scope and timing are flexible.

When to use: Most design teams, most of the time. Good for communicating with product and engineering because it avoids false precision on dates.

### By Product Area or Theme
Organize design work by product area or theme:

- Each area or theme represents a slice of the product (e.g. onboarding, settings, billing)
- Under each, list design initiatives: new flows, component work, design debt
- Align with product roadmap themes or OKRs where possible

When to use: When design work maps clearly to product areas. Good for cross-functional alignment.

### By Type of Work
Organize by type of design work:

- **Feature design**: New flows, screens, components for product initiatives
- **Design system**: Component creation, documentation, pattern updates
- **Design debt**: Consistency fixes, a11y improvements, usability polish
- **Research and discovery**: Exploratory work, concept testing, journey mapping

When to use: When the team wants to balance feature work with system and debt work. Helps avoid "only feature work" backlogs.

## Prioritization Approaches

### Impact vs Effort
Score