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| 1 | +# Impeccable Design Context — SUEWS |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +Captured via `/impeccable teach` on 2026-04-18. |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +This file is the single source of truth for design direction on any SUEWS-facing surface (suews.io landing, brand showcase, future dashboards, interactive documentation). All impeccable-family skills (`/craft`, `/polish`, `/critique`, `/animate`, etc.) read this file before producing work. |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +## Design Context |
| 8 | + |
| 9 | +### Users |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Two audiences, weighted **equally**: |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +- **Urban climate researchers & PhD students** — landing on suews.io to evaluate whether SUEWS fits their science question, verify citations and provenance, reach the Sphinx docs, or find the Discourse community. Technical, sceptical, will notice unsupported claims. |
| 14 | +- **Architects, engineers, and built-environment consultancies** (exemplified by the Foster + Partners / Arup lines of enquiry) — assessing whether SUEWS is serious enough to use in commercial microclimate workflows. Not a pure software-buyer audience; they want proof of scientific rigour, not a SaaS pitch. |
| 15 | + |
| 16 | +Secondary, design around but do not optimise for: UMEP/QGIS users arriving sideways, funders skimming for institutional credibility, and journalists chasing urban-heat stories. |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +Job-to-be-done on suews.io: **"Convince me in 30 seconds this is a serious, well-maintained, scientifically grounded model — then get me to the docs."** |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +### Brand Personality |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +Ting's words: **quietly confident, not fancy.** |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +Expanded: *rigorous, grounded, unshowy, enduring.* SUEWS has run for 15+ years across 20+ cities — the design should feel like a well-kept scientific instrument, not a 2025 AI startup. No hype, no glow, no "revolutionary". Authority comes from restraint and from the evidence on the page (citations, years active, institutional backing). |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +Emotional goals: **trust, competence, calm.** A reader should feel they've landed somewhere careful. |
| 27 | + |
| 28 | +### Aesthetic Direction |
| 29 | + |
| 30 | +The existing visual system in `site/` is the established brand. Treat it as canonical, not a starting point to redesign: |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +- **Palette**: Deep Blue `#2D3142`, Warm Stone `#5D5852`, Golden Sun `#F7B538`, Sun Core `#E85D04`, Forest Green `#09a25c`, Ocean Blue `#0077B6`, Sky Blue `#5DADE2`, Wave Blue `#0558a5`. These map to the physical constituents of the model (urban fabric, sun, vegetation, water) — the palette is the model's conceptual diagram. |
| 33 | +- **Theme**: dark default (suits the editorial/scientific register and the audience's typical viewing context — late-evening reading, researchers in dim offices) with a working light toggle. Respect `prefers-color-scheme`. |
| 34 | +- **Typography** — intentionally kept: Crimson Pro (display/serif), Instrument Sans (UI/body), JetBrains Mono (code/metrics). Yes, Crimson Pro and Instrument Sans appear on impeccable's "reflex fonts" watch-list, but they are already load-bearing on suews.io and the brand has settled. Do **not** churn them on the landing page. For *new* surfaces (dashboards, interactive tools, posters) where there's no prior commitment, reach beyond the reflex list first. |
| 35 | +- **Signature motifs**: topographic contour rings as ambient background, golden-hour halo on the logo, golden-ratio composition (1:1.618) for the logo glyph. These are the one-thing-you-remember — keep them. |
| 36 | +- **Register**: editorial-scientific, closer to a Royal Society journal landing page than a software product page. Facts in roman; emphasis via italic and weight, not colour shifts or gradients. |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +### Anti-references |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | +SUEWS should explicitly *not* look like: |
| 41 | + |
| 42 | +- A generic AI/ML startup (cyan-on-dark, purple-to-blue gradients, glowing neon accents, glassmorphism cards). |
| 43 | +- A 2024–2025 AI-generated template (identical cards in a 3-col grid, rounded-rect icon above every heading, gradient text for impact). |
| 44 | +- A consumer SaaS marketing page (big-number hero metrics in service of conversion, aggressive CTAs, persuasion patterns). |
| 45 | +- A legacy university-department site (1990s table layouts, Comic Sans, stacked centred everything). |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +### Accessibility |
| 48 | + |
| 49 | +Target: **WCAG 2.2 AA across the whole site**. AAA is not a design goal — it would force the palette into a flatness that fights the editorial register, and the audience doesn't warrant it. |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +Required practices on every new surface: |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | +- Text contrast verified against actual palette combinations (the current `text-muted` token `rgba(255,255,255,0.35)` on `#0F1119` is borderline for small text — audit before reuse). |
| 54 | +- Honour `prefers-reduced-motion`. The landing page currently has looping contour pulse, wave undulation, sun glow, and staggered card reveals — all of these must be reduced to static or single-shot when the user has requested less motion. |
| 55 | +- Focus states visible on all interactive surfaces. The current theme toggle and resource cards must have keyboard-visible focus rings, not only hover states. |
| 56 | +- No colour-only meaning. The golden-sun / water-blue / forest-green mapping to physical constituents is evocative but must not be the sole carrier of information. |
| 57 | +- No synthetic bold on display type; ensure Crimson Pro ships the real weights. |
| 58 | + |
| 59 | +### Design Principles |
| 60 | + |
| 61 | +Use these as the tie-breaker whenever a design decision is contested. If you can't tell whether a change improves the site, ask which principle it serves. |
| 62 | + |
| 63 | +1. **Evidence over assertion.** Prefer showing (citations, years, sites, institutional names, a real log of activity) over claiming ("powerful", "industry-leading"). If a claim can't be backed on the page, cut it. |
| 64 | +2. **Restraint is the voice.** Quiet confidence means one accent colour at a time, one motion at a time, whitespace over decoration. If a flourish doesn't earn its place, delete it. |
| 65 | +3. **The palette is the model.** Sun / water / vegetation / urban fabric colours map to what SUEWS simulates — use them to reinforce meaning, not as decoration. Don't introduce colours from outside this system. |
| 66 | +4. **Readable first, elegant second.** Body type at a comfortable size, line length capped at ~70ch, contrast audited. An elegant layout that fatigues a researcher after two screens is a failure. |
| 67 | +5. **Keep the topographic signature.** Contour rings, golden-hour glow, golden-ratio composition — these are what distinguish SUEWS from every other academic-software landing. Protect them; don't dilute them with generic decoration. |
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