Explorer Interface Brief
A 3D explorer (a heart, a jet engine, a cell, a volcano) succeeds or fails on its interface: where the model sits, how labels read against it, how a learner moves between free exploration and testing themselves. This skill turns a topic into a design brief a builder can follow and an image-model prompt that produces a convincing mock of the screen before any 3D work starts.
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
- Topic and the specific object or system to explore
- Audience: age or level (for example 14-year-old students, first-year medical students, museum visitors)
- Learning goal: what the learner should be able to name, explain or do afterwards
- Devices: classroom laptops, phones, a museum touch screen
- Brand or colour constraints, if any
Output Structure
1. Design brief
- Purpose: one sentence: who explores what, to learn what
- Audience notes: reading level, prior knowledge, device and setting
- Learning outcomes: three to five, each starting with a verb (name, locate, explain)
- Layout: the model stage, a side panel (or bottom sheet on phones) with the selected part's label, description and source, a parts list, and a toolbar (exploded view, quiz mode, reset). Give proportions for desktop and phone.
- Interactions: rotate, zoom, select (click, tap and keyboard via the parts list), exploded view, quiz mode, reset. State the response to each.
- Label style: font, size (at least 16 px body), casing, how labels attach to parts (side panel rather than floating text over geometry), and what a "source" line looks like
- Colour palette: background, panel, ink, accent and highlight as hex values, each pair checked for at least 4.5:1 contrast for text; a dark-mode variant
- Accessibility: keyboard path to every part, visible focus, reduced motion respected, no information carried by colour alone
- Content rules: every label carries a named source; the model is described as illustrative
2. Image-model prompt for the interface mock
A single prompt in this structure, ready for an image model:
UI mock-up, [device] screen, [width]x[height] aspect, of an interactive 3D explorer for [topic]. Left: [model description] on a [background colour] stage, three-quarter view, soft studio light. Right: a [panel colour] side panel with a title "[part name]", two lines of body text, a small "Source: [source]" line, and a list of [n] part names. Top of panel: three pill buttons "Exploded view", "Quiz mode", "Reset". Flat design, [palette as colour names], generous spacing, light sans-serif typography, no device frame, no watermark, legible placeholder text.
Plus a negative prompt (cluttered UI, tiny text, neon colours, photorealistic hands, watermarks) and two variants: one for phone in portrait, one for dark mode.
3. Handover notes
What the next steps need from this brief: the parts list it implies (for model-prompt-pack) and the palette and layout values (for explorer-viewer-builder), as a short table.
Quality Checks
- Learning outcomes are three to five and each starts with a verb
- Every interaction has a keyboard path, including selecting parts
- Every palette text pair is stated with a contrast of at least 4.5:1
- Layout is specified for both desktop and phone
- The image prompt names device, aspect, palette and every panel element
- The brief requires a named source for every label and calls the model illustrative
- The handover table lists the parts list and palette values
Anti-Patterns
- Labels floating over the model. They collide and become unreadable when the model rotates; use a side panel.
- Beautiful but unteachable. A brief with no learning outcomes produces a toy.
- Mouse-only selection. Keyboard and screen-reader users need the parts list.
- Mocks with unreadable text. Ask for legible placeholder text, or the mock misleads reviewers.
Example Trigger Phrases
- "Design the interface for a 3D explorer of the human heart for GCSE students."
- "Write an image prompt for a UI mock of an interactive jet engine viewer."
- "Plan the screens for a museum touch-screen 3D model of a volcano."
- "Brief for a 3D cell explorer app, phone first."
