DESIGN.md

Design System - Site Intelligence Studio

Product Context

Site Intelligence Studio is a working analysis surface for architecture students and early-career architects. The UI should feel like a professional geospatial/CAD desk: precise, evidence-led, calm, and useful under deadline pressure.

Visual Direction

• Direction: high-contrast site operations desk.
• Mood: serious, technical, architectural, and trustworthy.
• Avoid: cream-on-white, decorative gradients, generic SaaS cards, purple/blue AI palettes, emoji-led decoration, and low-contrast helper text.
• Surfaces: dark command/header shell with crisp white working panels.

Color

• Ink shell: #071112, #0d191b, #162426.
• Working surface: #fbfcfb, #f2f5f3, #e6ece9.
• Primary action: #006b62.
• Secondary action/accent: #098477.
• Caution: #c47712 on #fff0d2.
• Links/data: #245a93.
• Body text must maintain strong contrast. Avoid body text below 16px unless it is metadata.

Typography

• Primary: Aptos / Segoe UI Variable fallback stack for reliable HF/Windows rendering.
• Data/technical labels: Cascadia Code / IBM Plex Mono fallback.
• Display type is compact and functional, not marketing-hero oversized except in the top product title.

Layout

• Use one primary workspace: map/boundary input on the left, project setup/source context on the right.
• Use panels only for real working areas: map, project setup, uploads, output tabs.
• Keep radius at 6px. Avoid bubbly rounded SaaS components.
• Prefer compact hierarchy, visible labels, and direct status copy.

Interaction

• Primary CTA is a full-width teal action button.
• Map controls are segmented command buttons with a clear active state.
• Every approximate or unsafe data layer must show limits near the workflow, not buried in the report.

Evidence Rules

• Facts come from deterministic geometry, user input, OSM/Nominatim, Open-Meteo, DXF/GeoJSON parsing, or explicit evidence rows.
• AI may later rewrite evidence into captions, but must not invent site facts, legal boundaries, soil certainty, foundation safety, or final design advice.