NodeJSmith/i-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

Read ${CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR:-~/.claude}/skills/i-frontend-design/SKILL.md for design principles, anti-patterns, and the Context Gathering Protocol. Follow the protocol before proceeding — if no design context exists yet, you MUST run /i-teach-impeccable first.

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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 not answered by design context (design/context.md, .impeccable.md, or design/direction.md), STOP and call the AskUserQuestion tool to clarify. Use the answer to inform your refinement strategy. If the answer is unclear or deferred, proceed by reducing color count, not content.

CRITICAL: "Quieter" doesn't mean boring or generic. It means refined, sophisticated, and easier on the eyes. Think luxury, not laziness.

Plan Refinement

Create a strategy to reduce intensity while maintaining impact:

• Color approach: Desaturate or shift to more sophisticated tones?
• Hierarchy approach: Which elements should stay bold (very few), which should recede?
• Simplification approach: What can be removed entirely?
• Sophistication approach: How can we signal quality through restraint?

IMPORTANT: Great quiet design is harder than great bold design. Subtlety requires precision.

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Propose Changes

After analyzing the current state, present your proposed changes to the user:

1. Assessment: What's wrong and why (your domain analysis above)
2. Proposed changes: Specific changes ranked by impact, with rationale
3. Verification plan: What to check after implementation (LLM self-check items + Playwright verification if available)

Then STOP and confirm before implementing:

AskUserQuestion:
  question: "Here's what I propose. How would you like to proceed?"
  header: "Confirm"
  options:
    - label: "Implement"
      description: "Looks good — go ahead and make these changes."
    - label: "Refine scope"
      description: "I want to adjust what's included before you start."
    - label: "Challenge this first"
      description: "I'll run /mine-challenge against your proposal before we proceed."
    - label: "Stop here"
      description: "Don't implement anything. The proposal is in this conversation only."

If "Implement" → proceed to implementation below. If "Refine scope" → ask what to change, update proposal, re-confirm.

<!-- CHALLENGE-CALLER -->

If "Challenge this first" → invoke /mine-challenge inline against the proposal, read findings, revise proposal, re-present this gate. If "Stop here" → end the skill.

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Refine the Design

Systematically reduce intensity across these dimensions:

Color Refinement

• Reduce saturation: shift fully saturated colors to 70-85% saturation; soften bright tones to muted ones.
• Neutral dominance: let neutrals do more work, color as accent (10% rule); high contrast only where it matters most.
• Tinted grays, never gray on color: see /i-colorize.

Visual Weight Reduction

• Reduce font weights (900 → 600, 700 → 500); build hierarchy through weight, size, and space rather than color and boldness.
• Increase breathing room; thin or remove borders.

Simplification

• Remove decorative gradients, shadows, patterns, glows, and multiple-shadow stacks that don't serve purpose; flatten layering.

Motion Reduction

• Shorter distances (10-20px instead of 40px), gentler feedback over dramatic effects. Remove animations that serve no clear purpose. Easing: see /i-animate.

Composition Refinement

• Reduce scale jumps for a calmer feel; bring rogue elements back to the grid; even out spacing to a consistent rhythm.

NEVER:

• Make everything the same size/weight (hierarchy still matters)
• Remove all color (quiet ≠ grayscale)
• Eliminate all personality (maintain character through refinement)
• Sacrifice usability for aesthetics (functional elements still need clear affordances)
• Make everything small and light (some anchors needed)

Also review the anti-patterns reference — many anti-patterns describe over-designed AI defaults that quieter work should move away from.

Verify Quality

Ensure refinement maintains quality:

• Still functional: Can users still accomplish tasks easily?
• Still distinctive: Does it have character, or is it generic now?
• Better reading: Is text easier to read for extended periods?
• Sophistication: Does it feel more refined and premium?

Remember: Quiet design is confident design. It doesn't need to shout. Less is more, but less is also harder. Refine with precision and maintain intentionality.

Completion

After implementation, summarize in conversation:

1. Changes made: List each file changed and what was done
2. Verification: LLM self-check results (anti-pattern scan, consistency check). Note if Playwright was available for visual verification.
3. Suggested next step: Any follow-up skills that would complement this work (e.g., after /i-typeset, suggest /i-polish for a final pass)