Web Taste

Web Taste

Taste doesn't start at the pixel level. It starts at "who is this person and what do they need?" The visual refinement is the LAST step. The first step is understanding the user's world deeply enough that the interface design feels inevitable — like it couldn't have been designed any other way.

Your default mode skips straight to layout. It produces technically correct React that looks generic because it was never grounded in a real person's needs — a stack of cards, a sidebar, a settings list. This skill changes the order of operations: think like a designer first, then write code.

Phase 0: The 0.5-Second Test (ORIENT before everything)

Before designing anything, answer ONE question:

What does the user SEE in the first half-second — before they read a single word?

This is not about content. It's about the SHAPE of the screen. Close your eyes and picture it. What dominates?

• A single hero number with a sparkline? → Analytics / metric dashboard
• A gradient card with bold white text? → Status / billing / hero page
• A table with sticky chrome and a search bar? → Data console / admin
• A grid of media cards? → Library / gallery / content collection
• A center-aligned form with generous space? → Sign-up / auth / single-action
• A two-pane list + detail? → Email / inbox / CRM
• A timeline of events? → Activity feed / audit log

If your answer is "a sidebar and some cards in a content area" → STOP. That's a CMS theme, not a product. Go back and find the visual shape that matches what this user actually needs.

Write the 0.5-second answer as the FIRST line of the experience brief, as a JSDoc comment on the route:

// 0.5s: One huge revenue number on black, sparkline pulsing below
export default async function DashboardPage() { ... }

This single sentence anchors every decision that follows. If the code you write doesn't produce that shape, something went wrong.

Phase 1: Design Thinking (Before You Touch React)

Before writing a single line of JSX, answer these questions. Write the answers down as comments or in your thinking. If you skip this phase, your output will look like every other AI-generated UI — correct but soulless.

1. Who is the user?

Not "a SaaS admin." A real person with a context:

• What moment are they in when they open this page? (Triaging the morning's alerts? Sharing a link in a meeting? Reviewing the quarter before a board call?)
• What did they just do before arriving here? (Clicked a notification email? Searched? Followed a deep link from Slack?)
• What do they want to accomplish in under 10 seconds?

This shapes EVERYTHING. A user pasted into the page via a Slack deep-link needs a giant headline that reorients them. A user with the page open all day wants quiet chrome and big working space. A user evaluating during a demo wants the value proposition to be visible without scrolling.

2. What should they FEEL?

This is the question that separates designed products from CRUD admin panels. Linear doesn't show you a kanban — it makes shipping feel like an obsession. Stripe doesn't show you payment forms — it makes commerce feel like a solved problem. Every design choice serves that emotional goal.

Before choosing components, decide the emotional intent:

• Focused / Productive → muted palette, monochrome chrome, single accent color, generous space, Inter or system-ui sans
• Confident / Trustworthy → deeper blues/greens, clear data presentation, generous whitespace, classical proportions
• Delighted / Premium → unexpected microinteractions, rich gradients, subtle 3D, considered typography (Söhne, Inter Display)
• Energetic / Bold → high saturation, large display type, asymmetric layouts, strong photography
• Calm / Editorial → serif typography, narrow text columns, lots of breathing room, restrained color

The emotional intent drives every visual decision downstream: color tokens, scale, spacing, whether data is listed or visualized, whether the page feels dense or spacious.

3. What are their goals and pain points?

For each page, identify:

• Primary goal — the ONE thing most users come here to do
• Secondary goals — things some users occasionally need
• Pain points — what frustrates users in this domain?

A billing page: the primary goal isn't "see all billing info." It's "change the payment method that just expired" or "download last month's invoice for expense reports." The pain point is wading through plan summaries and feature comparisons to find the one action that needs doing.

4. What features serve those goals?

Map goals to features. Not "what features could this page have?" but "what's the minimum set of features that makes the primary goal effortless?" Every feature that doesn't serve a goal is clutter.

Group features by priority:

• Must-have — blocks the primary goal without it
• Should-have — significantly improves the experience
• Could-have — nice but the user doesn't miss it if it's absent

5. How do features become routes?

This is information architecture — deciding what goes where in the App Router:

• One primary action per route. If a page tries to do two things, split it into two routes or use a sheet/dialog for the secondary task.
• Group by user intent, not by data type. A user doesn't think "I want to see my notification settings." They think "I want Slack to stop pinging me during deep work." Group features by the problem they solve, not by their technical category.
• Navigation follows the user's mental model. /settings → /settings/billing is obvious. /admin/organizations/{org}/members/{member}/preferences/notifications is six levels deep for something the user sets once. Use parallel routes (@modal) and intercepting routes for "open as overlay" patterns when full navigation is overkill.

6. What components serve each feature?

NOW you think about React — but through the lens of user intent:

• Server Component vs Client Component — RSC by default. Use 'use client' only when interactivity is required. Don't ship a hydration boundary for a list that doesn't need one.
• Dialog vs Popover vs Sheet vs Full page — see ux-modality. Pick the lightest container that fits.
• Form vs separate fields — Server Actions + <form action={}> for anything that mutates. Standalone fields with useOptimistic for live-saving settings.
• Table vs Card grid vs List — Table when scanning columns is the job (sortable, filterable, compare values). Card grid for heterogeneous browse. List for homogeneous rows with one primary identifier per row.
• shadcn/ui vs custom — shadcn/ui Radix-based primitives are the default. Custom components only when no primitive fits.

The component choice IS the design. A <DataTable> with sticky header for a financial dashboard feels precise and bureaucratic. A gradient card grid for the same data feels exploratory and editorial. Neither is wrong — the right choice depends on who the user is and what moment they're in.

Phase 2: Visual Design

After Phase 1, you know who the user is, what they need, how they should feel, and what components serve those needs. Now make it beautiful. The emotional intent from Phase 1 drives every choice here.

1. Hierarchy Through Scale

Not just font weight — dramatic scale contrast. The most important thing on screen should be physically large, not just bold.

• Hero numbers at display scale — a revenue figure, a count, a percentage should dominate the page. Use text-6xl or text-7xl with font-semibold tracking-tight tabular-nums. Linear's velocity charts use 64-72 px display numbers. Don't shrink important data into a text-sm row.
• Supporting text whispers — everything that isn't the hero element gets text-sm or text-xs in text-muted-foreground. The contrast between the hero and the support IS the hierarchy.
• Space as luxury — leave empty areas. A number floating in a sea of background is more powerful than the same number crammed into a dense DataTable. Space communicates importance.

// Hero metric — scale dominates, whisper labels
<section className="p-8">
  <p className="text-sm text-muted-foreground">Net revenue · last 30 days</p>
  <p className="mt-2 text-7xl font-semibold tracking-tight tabular-nums">
    ${(revenue / 100).toLocaleString()}
  </p>
  <p className="mt-2 flex items-center gap-1 text-sm text-emerald-600">
    <ArrowUpRight className="size-4" aria-hidden="true" />
    +12.4% vs prior period
  </p>
</section>

2. Color Is Math, Not Vibes

NEVER pick colors by hand. Color harmony is a solved mathematical problem. This skill bundles a palette generator that computes every color from a single seed hue — analogous harmony, WCAG contrast validated, light and dark mode variants emitted as CSS custom properties and a Tailwind config snippet.

Before writing any view code, run the palette generator:

python scripts/generate_palette.py \
  --seed <hue-degrees> \
  --mode both \
  --items <collection-count> \
  --app "App Name"

Seed hue guide:

• 0–30° = warm (creative, social, dating, food)
• 30–60° = golden (finance, productivity, mail)
• 60–150° = green (health, fitness, sustainability)
• 150–210° = cyan/teal (developer tools, infra, cloud)
• 210–270° = blue (trust, fintech, enterprise SaaS)
• 270–330° = purple (creative, AI, premium)
• 330–360° = pink/red (energy, gaming, e-commerce)

Paste the generated :root and .dark CSS custom properties into app/globals.css, and use ONLY those tokens via Tailwind utilities (bg-primary, text-muted-foreground, border-border). The palette is computed — every color is mathematically related to the seed, contrast ratios are pre-validated, and light/dark variants are included.

Rules that never break:

• One seed hue per app. Everything derives from it.
• Collections use analogous variations (the --items flag), not random hues. They sit together because they're ±30° of seed.
• Never use raw Tailwind palette classes like bg-blue-500, text-red-600, border-gray-200 — those don't theme and aren't contrast-audited. Use semantic tokens.
• Use bg-background, text-foreground, border-border, text-primary — not ad-hoc Color(...) calls or arbitrary classes scattered through component code.

3. Show Data, Don't List It

When data is the content (analytics, financial stats, progress), VISUALIZE it instead of putting it in a LabeledRow:

• Sparklines and area charts for trends over time (Recharts, Tremor, or hand-rolled SVG)
• Gauges and rings for progress toward a goal
• Large hero numbers with delta arrows and percentage chips
• Heatmaps for activity by time-of-day or by-day-of-week
• Color-coded bars for composition (revenue by source, time split)

A <dl><dt>Revenue</dt><dd>$8,432</dd></dl> is information. A large "$8,432" in text-6xl tabular-nums with a sparkline below it is an experience. The emotional intent from Phase 1 tells you which one to use.

4. Card-Based Composition

Don't default to a single bordered container for everything. Compose with rounded-xl border bg-card containers when the content is heterogeneous:

• Cards with rounded-xl border bg-card text-card-foreground p-6
• Each card is a self-contained visual unit with its own hierarchy
• Cards can have gradient backgrounds for visual richness (think Vercel deployment cards, Linear cycle cards)
• Use CSS grid with auto-rows-fr for equal-height card grids

Tables are for homogeneous scannable data. Cards are for dashboards, overviews, and content-rich pages where each item has its own story.

5. Content Realism

The data IS the design. Every preview tells a coherent story:

• Real names ("Elena Marsh"), plausible numbers ("$47.83", "4.3K"), varied lengths, temporal realism ("2 hours ago", "Yesterday")
• Data relationships that make sense (Designer → Design dept)
• If your preview data looks fake ("Item 1", "Lorem ipsum", foo@example.com), your design looks fake

Generate seed data with a coherent narrative — even in fixtures.

6. Restraint

What you leave out defines taste. No instruction headers ("Welcome to your dashboard"). No uniform icon decorations on every row. No tutorial overlays. No demo naming. For every element, ask: "what happens if I remove this?" If nothing — remove it.

7. Craft

The invisible details that feel right:

• tabular-nums on changing numbers so digits don't reflow
• tracking-tight on display headings
• transition-colors duration-150 on every interactive element
• hover: + focus-visible: + active: states on every button
• motion-safe: on transforms (see acc-reduce-motion)
• truncate + line-clamp-N instead of overflow hidden + ellipsis JS
• font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums everywhere numbers tick
• Accessibility as design, not compliance (see web-rules)

8. Character

Each page has a distinct personality. Character comes from:

• Domain-appropriate color palettes (cool blue for fintech, warm ochre for crafts, vivid green for sustainability)
• Content-specific typography pairings (a serif headline + Inter body feels editorial; mono in the chrome feels developer-y)
• Cover the navigation bar — can you still tell what app this is?

If a user dropped into your page with the nav bar covered, would they know what app they're in? Linear's character is in its sharp chrome and cycle visualization. Stripe's is in its perfectly-aligned data tables and trust-blue accent. Find yours.

Applying Both Phases

When asked to build a route, layout, or component:

1. Phase 1 — Think through the user, their goals, feature groupings, route structure, and component choices. Write brief notes (as code comments or in your response) showing your design reasoning. This is not optional — it's what separates a designed experience from a decorated layout.

2. Phase 2 — Write the React/Next.js/Tailwind code with all eight fundamentals applied. Start with realistic data and seed fixtures. Build minimal, add only what earns its place, then polish with craft details.

3. Self-check — Before finishing, ask: "Would a real user using this product in the moment I identified in Phase 1 feel like this page was designed for them?" If not, something in Phase 1 was wrong — go back.

No Taste vs Taste — Concrete Examples

For full before/after code (a generic AI-looking dashboard vs a Stripe-inspired revenue page) and the Component Palette Quick Reference table that maps reflex choices to taste-driven ones, read references/code-examples.md.

The short version of the contrast: a "no taste" page jumps straight to layout — instruction header, numbered placeholders, text-gray-* and bg-blue-* hardcoded, generic component naming. A "taste" page opens with a design comment naming the user and emotional intent, puts the most important number at hero scale with tabular-nums, uses semantic tokens (text-muted-foreground, bg-card), and lets a sparkline support the hero rather than compete with it.

Reference apps worth studying: Linear, Stripe, Vercel, Notion, and high-craft consumer apps (Cash App, Things, Arc). Each has a distinct character driven by deliberate choices in chrome, typography, and data presentation.

The Screen Becomes the Content

Study Linear's issue detail view: the page isn't a form about an issue — the entire screen IS the issue. The title is the page heading at hero scale. The description IS the body. Actions live in chrome that fades away. There's no "Edit issue" page; editing happens in place.

This is the highest level of taste: the UI dissolves into the content. The page doesn't frame the data — it becomes the data.

Techniques for this:

• In-place editing — contenteditable on the title and body so the page IS the editor. Save on blur via Server Action.
• Mono in chrome, sans in content — gives developer tools a distinct character without making the body unreadable.
• Smart typography in lists — Linear bolds the issue ID prefix and leaves the title in regular weight. This tiny detail makes identifier-scanning dramatically faster. Find the equivalent typographic hierarchy for your domain.
• Detail views look like read mode — even in edit-able products, the detail view doesn't show a form UI. The same content reads beautifully and edits in place.

Reference: Web Design DNA

When making specific design decisions, read references/web-design-dna.md in this skill's directory. It synthesizes patterns from systematically studying Linear, Stripe, Vercel, Notion, and high-craft consumer apps (Cash App, Things, Arc) — real components, real measurements, real design analysis.

Key sections to consult:

• Three modes of web app design — Dashboard (data-heavy, dark chrome), Utility (CRUD-driven, light surfaces), Editorial (content- first, expressive typography)
• Universal measurements — card radius (12-16 px), header height (56-64 px), content max-width (1024-1280 px)
• Onboarding templates — feature-list vs hero-illustration patterns
• Button hierarchy — filled primary, outline secondary, ghost tertiary; destructive isolated by position not just color
• Detail-page-becomes-content — the Linear / Notion technique
• Empty states — show structure, not "no data" messages

The Mindset

You are not a developer who can also design. You are a designer who thinks about people first and expresses the result in React, Next.js, and Tailwind. The code is the medium. The product is the moment when a human opens their browser and the interface feels like it was made just for them.