Design review
A design review that checks the screens against the requirements they were drawn for. It gives a score out of 10 and puts numbered pins on each screen, each pin naming what to fix and which requirement or heuristic it breaks — so the feedback can be acted on rather than argued with.
- Asks for
- The screens — images, or a link to the design file
- The requirements they were drawn for: a PRD, an FRD or a list
- Who it is for, where that changes what good looks like
- Gives back
- A score out of 10 against the requirements supplied
- Numbered pins on each screen, placed where the problem is
- The reason for each pin: the requirement missed, or the heuristic broken
- The states that are missing entirely — empty, loading, error, too much data
- Plan
- Pro and Max
- Use next
- Design, Design system, FRD, PRD
What it gives you
Import screen — 6/10 1 No empty state. FRD FR-14 requires rows with missing data to be listed; there is nowhere on this screen for that list to appear. [requirement] 2 The column match is shown after saving. PRD §2.1 says before. [requirement] 3 Primary and secondary actions are the same weight, so the destructive one reads as the default. [heuristic] Missing states: error, more than 500 rows.
How it works
Design review usually happens as a meeting, and what comes out of a meeting is a list of opinions with no reference to anything. The designer takes away five comments of unequal weight, two of which contradict each other, and nobody can tell afterwards which ones were requirements and which were taste.
So every pin here names its reason: the requirement it misses, or the heuristic it breaks. That distinction is the whole value. A screen missing a state the spec requires is not the same kind of problem as a button somebody would move, and treating them as one list is how real gaps get traded away against preferences.
The score is there to make the review comparable between rounds. Second pass on the same screens with the same requirements should score higher, and if it does not, the pins say which ones came back. It is not a grade on the designer; it is a measure of the distance between the screens and the document.
Who it is for
A PM or designer who has screens and a spec and wants to know where they disagree before engineering starts building from the mock-ups.
Where it stops
It reviews what the screens show against the requirements you supply: with no requirements it can only apply general heuristics, which is a much weaker review. It cannot judge whether the design is beautiful, and it is not a usability test — only people using it tell you that.
Questions people ask
What does it need from me to review a design?
The screens, as images or a design-file link, and the requirements they were drawn against. The requirements are the part that matters: without them the review falls back to general heuristics, which produces the kind of feedback anybody could give about any screen. With a PRD or an FRD it can tell you that a required state has nowhere to appear, which is the finding worth having before engineering starts.
Why separate requirement problems from heuristic ones?
Because they have different authority. A screen that cannot show a state the spec requires is broken and somebody has to change something. A button whose placement breaks a convention is a judgement call the designer may have good reasons about. Putting both in one undifferentiated list is how a genuine gap gets traded away in a meeting against three matters of taste, and it is the main reason design review notes get ignored.
What is the score out of 10 actually measuring?
The distance between the screens and the requirements given, not the quality of the design in the abstract. Its real use is comparison across rounds: review the same screens again after changes and the score should move, and if it has not, the pins tell you which problems came back. Treat a single score in isolation as a rough signal and the pins as the actual output.
Run it on your own work
Design review needs an account, because it writes against what you give it and remembers what you have told it before. It is part of Pro and Max. Or see what the plans cost first.