Audit and preserve redesign contracts

These examples and illustrative results are independently authored teaching materials, not measured model results.

Use case

Improve spacing/type on a working checkout without a requested flow change. Teaching contracts include /checkout, email, checkout_submit and focus on the first invalid field. Layout changes can accidentally break these nonvisual relationships.

Mechanism

Establish preserve/evolve versus structural intent, inventory brand, content, routes, fields, events and accessibility and separate permitted changes from retained contracts. Apply focused visuals first. Explicit structural migration receives its own mapping/checks; redesign alone does not authorize interface renames.

Bad example

While restyling, replace route/field/event names and remove error focus for a cleaner appearance.

Good example

Under the teaching brief, record /checkout, email, checkout_submit and current error-focus behavior before improving spacing/type. Review visuals separately from route/field/event/keyboard evidence. Structural changes need explicit scoped migration/acceptance, not silent extras.

Why the change matters

A nicer screenshot can hide broken autofill, analytics or keyboard handling. Inventorying nonvisual contracts makes accidental drift independently inspectable.

Observable expectation

The fixture retains route, email submission, event and invalid-field focus while spacing/type change. Exercise keyboard/error states, not screenshots only.

Unscoped renames or focus regressions cannot pass as just redesign.

Limits

Authorized structural work may change contracts with migration checks. Source lever order/value ratios are not measurements here, and preservation should not retain known defects.