What is the product-designer skill?
The product-designer skill is a SKILL.md in the borghei skills library that makes your agent work like a senior product designer. It runs Discover, Define, Develop, Test and Deliver stages with checkpoints, and ships three Python scripts for design critique, journey mapping and usability scoring.
Each stage of the product-designer skill ends with a checkpoint. Discovery needs a problem statement backed by at least 3 user data points, and testing needs every critical usability issue documented with a severity rating.
The skill sits in the product-team folder of the borghei Claude-Skills repository. It frames your agent as a senior product designer covering UX research, UI design, design systems, prototyping and usability testing, and it asks clarifying questions first.
What your agent produces
- User journey maps with stages from awareness to retention, plus emotion, pain points and opportunities per stage.
- Information architecture work using open, closed or hybrid card sorting, with a site map as the output.
- Prototype guidance matched to fidelity, from paper sketches to high-fidelity handoff.
- A usability test plan with objectives, participants, tasks, success criteria and metrics.
- Design principles, tokens and component specs ready for developer handoff.
The five-day design sprint
| Day | Activity | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Map problem, interview experts | Challenge map, target area |
| Tuesday | Sketch solutions, Crazy 8s | Solution sketches |
| Wednesday | Decide, storyboard | Testable hypothesis |
| Thursday | Build prototype | Realistic clickable prototype |
| Friday | Test with 5 users | Validated or invalidated hypothesis |
Scripts that score the work
design_critique.pygenerates a checklist based on Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics and accessibility standards, then turns completed answers into a report with severity ratings.journey_mapper.pybuilds journey maps with emotion curves from a saas, ecommerce or mobile_app template, or from your own stages file.usability_scorer.pycalculates System Usability Scale scores and task metrics from CSV files, with grade interpretation.
Who the product-designer skill is for
Best for
- Turning a vague product idea into a journey map, test plan or critique before anyone writes code.
- Teams that want a repeatable research and usability routine with measurable targets.
- Founders who need design structure but no dedicated researcher.
Not for
- Figma file manipulation or asset export. The skill points to the Figma API, and Framelink Figma MCP covers reading Figma data.
- Visual regression testing, real-time analytics dashboards, eye tracking or A/B test implementation.
- Generating design tokens at depth. The skill refers you to the design-system-lead and ui-design-system skills.
- A final visual style. It plans and critiques but does not choose a look.
Use it with UiChemy
A journey map or wireframe from this skill is planning work. Once the layout is settled in Figma, UiChemy Figma to WordPress converts the frames into an editable Elementor or Gutenberg page. Click Get Started on uichemy.com.
How to install Product Designer Skill: UX Research to Dev Handoff
npx @borghei/claude-skills add product-designerRun the installer
The README documents
npx @borghei/claude-skills add <skill name>and uses senior-fullstack as its example. Swap in product-designer. It needs Node 18 or newer and detects which assistant you use.Or copy it by hand
Run
git clone https://github.com/borghei/Claude-Skills.gitand copy the product-team/product-designer folder, scripts included, to wherever your agent loads skills from.Try a script
From the skill folder, run
python scripts/journey_mapper.py --template saasto print a sample journey map. Other templates are ecommerce and mobile_app.Ask for a deliverable
Name the deliverable, such as a usability test plan for a checkout flow, and answer the clarifying questions about user, deliverable and fidelity.
Check that it loaded
Ask the agent for a usability test plan. It should ask about the target user, the deliverable and the fidelity before drafting, or list its assumptions if you tell it to just draft.
Key features
- Clarify firstAsks for the target user and problem, which deliverable you want (journey map, wireframe, usability test plan or design critique) and the fidelity and stage.
- Five-stage workflowDiscover, Define, Develop, Test and Deliver, each with a checkpoint such as an IA validated by card sort or a prototype covering the happy path plus one error state.
- Design sprint formatA five-day plan from mapping the problem on Monday to testing with 5 users on Friday, with an output named for each day.
- Journey map templateA persona-led layout with actions, touchpoints, emotion, pain points and opportunities for each stage from awareness to retention.
- Information architectureCovers open, closed and hybrid card sorting, and gives a site map example for turning findings into navigation structure.
- Principles and tokensHierarchy, consistency, feedback and accessibility, with a 4.5 to 1 contrast minimum and a CSS token set built on a 4 pixel spacing unit.
- Usability test planA template with objectives, six participants, three tasks, completion and time targets, and metrics including a System Usability Scale target of 68 or more.
- Prototype fidelity guideCompares paper, low, mid and high fidelity by purpose, tools and timeline, so the agent picks the cheapest level that answers the question.
- Heuristic critique scriptdesign_critique.py scores a design against Nielsen's 10 heuristics and accessibility standards, with severity ratings and prioritized recommendations.
- Journey and SUS scoringjourney_mapper.py and usability_scorer.py turn templates and CSV data into emotion curves, SUS scores, completion rates and time on task.
Frequently asked questions
What is the product-designer skill?
It is a skill in the borghei Claude-Skills library that makes your agent act as a senior product designer. It covers UX research, UI design, design systems, prototyping and usability testing through a five-stage workflow, and includes three Python scripts for critique, journey maps and usability scoring.
How do I install the product-designer skill?
Run the README installer, npx @borghei/claude-skills add product-designer, which needs Node 18 or newer. You can also clone the repository and copy the product-team/product-designer folder, with its scripts, into the folder where your agent loads skills.
Which AI coding agents can use the product-designer skill?
The README platform table marks Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Cline and Goose as native, and Aider, Jules and RooCode as compatible. The installer detects your assistant and places the skill in the right directory.
What does usability_scorer.py calculate?
It calculates System Usability Scale scores from a CSV of participant answers, plus task metrics from a CSV of completion, time and errors. Results come with grade interpretation and benchmarking. Running it with the sample action creates example CSV files so you can see the expected columns.
How does the design critique work?
Run design_critique.py with the checklist flag to get an empty checklist, fill it in, then pass the completed JSON file with the answers flag. The report covers Nielsen's 10 heuristics and accessibility, with severity ratings and compliance scores. For deeper audits, see an accessibility review skill.
Does the product-designer skill create Figma designs?
No. It lists Figma file manipulation and asset export as out of scope. Its output is documents and structured data such as journey maps, test plans and critique findings that you translate into design changes. For UX patterns after research, see the ux-design skill.
Which tools does it integrate with?
The integration table covers Figma, Maze and UserTesting for task data, Dovetail and Condens for interview themes, Jira and Linear for tickets, Notion and Confluence for documentation, and Miro or FigJam for journey map workshops. Most integrations work by exporting or importing the scripts' data files.
What license does the product-designer skill use?
The SKILL.md header and the README state MIT plus Commons Clause. That is free for open-source, personal, education and internal business use, but the library cannot be sold or repackaged as a paid product. GitHub shows no standard license, so read the LICENSE file before redistributing.