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; should the preset block also carry a group heading (a divider now bounds it — 2026-06-12, user-decided; SelectControl dividerBefore)?

• "Edit themes…" action row inside the value picker (LivePreview.tsx — ChartThemeControl). A non-value action lives inside a single-select disclosure (the VS Code theme-picker pattern), placed after the custom-themes block and before the preset roster (first-use feedback: at the very bottom it was invisible without scrolling). The ours-vs-presets divider (2026-06-12) now bounds it below; remaining council questions: should the action row itself be styled distinctly from the value rows; is a mid-list row that opens a modal instead of selecting surprising to AT users?

• Theme Builder config editor is a plain textarea (ThemeBuilderModal.tsx). Monaco (with the Vega-Lite config schema for completions) would match the main editor but is heavy inside a modal and untested in that mounting. Revisit whether the builder deserves a Monaco instance, and whether the gallery's canvas charts need text alternatives beyond the per-card captions.

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).