- Job
- Meaning without relying on hue alone
- Requirement
- must specify
- States / rules
- Primary, secondary, accent, neutral scale (5–11 stops, temperature locked), semantic feedback (success / warning / error / info as their own family), on-color (text/icon on accent). Contrast AA as a design input. Color never the only state signal.
- Specified means
- Named roles exist; each has light and dark; on-color is specified for every accent surface
- Hardest context
- White serif on ocher card; color-blind check for status
color.text.on-accent on article cards
“Some greys”; brand green used as success
How this lives in Building Blocks
Representation: Shared foundation / token / behavior guidance.
Building Blocks should provide shared guidance, semantic roles, examples, and reusable implementation hooks where appropriate. Each product maps those roles to its own theme and documents any justified exceptions.
Stress the semantic layers, not a palette strip.
Lock 5–11 stops and a temperature; avoid “some greys.”
Success, warning, error, and info are their own families; brand accent is not success by default.
Specify text/icon roles for every accent surface.
Named roles must exist in both appearances.
Color cannot be the only state signal.
- White serif on ocher card
- Color-blind check for status
- Interactive accent with visible focus on dark
Do not specify the easy case only.
The source checklist’s hardest-context test is part of what “specified” means: White serif on ocher card; color-blind check for status.
On-spec signal
color.text.on-accent on article cards
Failure signal
“Some greys”; brand green used as success
Catalog connection
The product-local Catalog should show this row’s actual state for that product using the Catalog contract. Building Blocks documentation can define the baseline, but it does not make a product’s row Specified, Designed, or In code by itself.