quieter

Reduce visual intensity in designs that are too bold, aggressive, or overstimulating, creating a more refined and approachable aesthetic without losing effectiveness.

MANDATORY PREPARATION

Context Gathering (Do This First)

You cannot do a great job without having necessary context, such as target audience (critical), desired use-cases (critical), brand personality/tone, and everything else that a great human designer would need as well.

Attempt to gather these from the current thread or codebase.

1. If you don't find exact information and have to infer from existing design and functionality, you MUST STOP and STOP and call the AskUserQuestionTool to clarify. whether you got it right.
2. Otherwise, if you can't fully infer or your level of confidence is medium or lower, you MUST STOP and call the AskUserQuestionTool to clarify. clarifying questions first to complete your context.

Do NOT proceed until you have answers. Guessing leads to generic design.

Use frontend-design skill

Use the frontend-design skill for design principles and anti-patterns. Do NOT proceed until it has executed and you know all DO's and DON'Ts.

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Assess Current State

Analyze what makes the design feel too intense:

1. Identify intensity sources:

   • Color saturation: Overly bright or saturated colors
   • Contrast extremes: Too much high-contrast juxtaposition
   • Visual weight: Too many bold, heavy elements competing
   • Animation excess: Too much motion or overly dramatic effects
   • Complexity: Too many visual elements, patterns, or decorations
   • Scale: Everything is large and loud with no hierarchy

2. Understand the context:

   • What's the purpose? (Marketing vs tool vs reading experience)
   • Who's the audience? (Some contexts need energy)
   • What's working? (Don't throw away good ideas)
   • What's the core message? (Preserve what matters)

If any of these are unclear from the codebase, STOP and call the AskUserQuestionTool to clarify.