core

• what problem are we actually solving?

• who's using this thing?

• what's the one feature that has to work?

• what already exists that people love/hate?

flows

• what's the main user journey?

• which screens are must-have vs nice-to-have?

• any hard technical constraints?

• mobile first or desktop first?

system

• existing design system or starting fresh?

• dark mode needed?

• accessibility requirements?

• any weird platform-specific stuff?

handoff

• who's building this?

• animation specs needed?

• prototype fidelity expectations?

• design QA process?

timeline

• when do you need first designs?

• feedback loops - who's involved?

• dev handoff deadline?

• future phase planning?