TED-15 · Custom Rules Mockups

Three design variants for custom email categorization rules — no chat interface.

Users write rules in plain English. AI parses silently. Each variant takes a different UX stance.

Dimension	Textarea-First	Rules Table	Carded Hybrid
Density	Medium	High	Low
Input UX	Always-visible textarea	Collapsible "Add rule" drawer	Slide-in flyout panel
Rule display	List with NL + interpreted text	Spreadsheet-style table	Card per rule + toggle
Manual builder	✗ No	✗ No	✓ Yes (flyout)
Scanability	Medium	High	Medium
Primary use	Bulking adding rules	Managing many rules	Editing individual rules

001 — Textarea-First

Always-visible textarea, silent AI parsing, inline preview

Write rules first, parsing second. Textarea is always visible — no clicking to add, no modal. Best for batch input.

Strong at

Bulking adding many rules at once. AI parsing is side-effect, not a gate. Low cognitive overhead.

Weak at

Managing many rules. No structured view — everything lives in one blob. Hard to scan 10+ rules.

Spreadsheet-style table, collapsible add drawer, structured columns

Rules as data. Table format makes conditions, actions, and state visible at a glance. Best for power users with 5+ rules.

Strong at

Scanability — condition/action columns make rule logic immediately visible. Hover reveals edit actions. Scales to many rules.

Weak at

Bulk import. Adding rules requires expanding a drawer, typing, then confirming. No always-visible textarea for batch.

Per-rule cards + slide-in flyout with both NL and structured builder

Cards + flyout panel. Each rule is a distinct object. The flyout offers both NL input and a structured dropdown builder — best of both worlds.

Strong at

Individual rule management. Cards feel tactile — toggle, edit, delete per rule. Flyout has both NL and structured mode for Phase 2 readiness.

Weak at

Density — takes more vertical space per rule than table. Flyout adds an extra interaction layer. Slower for power users.

Textarea-first is the strongest Phase 1 candidate — lowest cognitive overhead, matches the "no chat" constraint perfectly, and the AI-parsed inline preview gives immediate feedback. Users type, AI makes sense of it, done.
Rules Table wins for Phase 2 (power users with 10+ rules). The condition/action columns are instantly scannable. Skip/add/edit is fast once rules are there.
Carded Hybrid is the most visually polished but adds interaction cost. The flyout panel with a built-in structured builder is forward-looking but over-engineered for Phase 1.
My recommendation: Textarea-first for Phase 1 → iterate toward a hybrid that adds a table view alongside the textarea in Phase 2.