refero-design

Grounding UI design decisions in real design research involves searching and analyzing references from existing products using MCP tools. This approach extracts actual patterns for typography, color, and layout, producing a research summary and production-ready design specification to reduce guesswork.

Researching design patterns for new screens and flows uses MCP tools like search_screens and search_flows to discover real product examples. You then analyze these references with get_screen and get_flow to extract intentional design choices, generating a steal list for your interface.

Yes, the research-first design workflow requires using Refero MCP tools such as search_screens, search_flows, get_screen, get_flow, and get_design_guidance. These tools enable the discovery, analysis, and pattern extraction needed to produce credible craft and avoid generic AI outputs.

Yes, you can create production-ready design specifications by applying a research-first workflow that discovers and analyzes real interface references. The process yields a research summary, extracted patterns, and a final specification grounded in actual design research rather than AI guesswork.

Design research with MCP tools pulls patterns from real products to inform typography, color, and interaction choices, ensuring intentional design and unique brand voice. Generic AI output lacks this research grounding, often producing guesswork and recognizable AI-slop.

You should not use research-first design when you need rapid, low-fidelity prototyping without referencing existing products, or if your interface requires highly novel interactions that cannot be informed by analyzing current screen and flow patterns from other apps.