astrolabe/docs/ux-second-pass.md

UX second pass — batched council review

A running parking lot of small UX / interaction decisions deferred for a batched /council review, rather than gating each one the moment it surfaces. Append quirks here as they come up; resolve them together in one pass, record the resolution into the contract (docs/architecture/09+10 and the relevant docs/spec/), then delete the row.

Open

• Chart theme picker placement & header crowding (LivePreview.tsx — ChartThemeControl). The picker sits in the preview header because nesting a SelectControl inside the PreviewSettings popover is impossible today (one-open-popover registry: the select would close/unmount its own parent). Header now holds Fit + theme + export + gear; at narrow pane widths the long trigger labels ("FiveThirtyEight", "Urban Institute") may crowd it. Council questions: does the picker deserve header prominence (the "transform your chart" showcase) or settings-cluster placement (a persistent global pref); should the popover registry learn nesting; 16 flat options — group presets under a heading?

Deferred (not design debts, revisit on demand)

• Drag-and-drop field assignment — chips are click/keyboard-first by design; drag would be a progressive enhancement on top of the chooser model, not a replacement. Revisit if real usage asks for it (likely alongside Phase 4 faceting, where drag-to-shelf reads most naturally).