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chore(01-design-tokens-rams-foundation-01): commit design baseline — Rams docs, mockups, agent skills
- Root Rams design docs (DESIGN.md, IDEAS.md) and GSD install-fix notes (GSD_FIX.md, gsd-fix.sh) - Four Telemetry Rams mockup screens + telemetry_rams/DESIGN.md (canonical token frontmatter) - .agents/ project skills (design-taste-frontend) + skills-lock.json - .gitignore: node_modules/dist/env secrets/OS junk; .planning stays local-only; Zone.Identifier scrubbed (9 files deleted)
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# Layout
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How the page is put together: margins, the grid, where text sits, how sections differ, navigation,
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endings and the phone. The direction sheet gives the specific compositions; this file gives the habits
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behind them, taken from the panel's notes on the 114 studied sites that scored 7.3 or higher (counts
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below are hand tallies from those notes, so read them as "about").
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## Contents
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1. What strong pages do
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2. Margins and the grid
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3. Where text sits
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4. Empty space
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5. The frame: margins, balance and titles
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6. Sections: carry the idea, vary the arrangement
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7. Navigation
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8. Endings
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9. The phone is a second composition
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10. How pages fail
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## 1. What strong pages do
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- **Tight margins, content to the edges.** About 45 of 114 use outer margins of 32px or less; only
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about 8 use 80px or more. The centred 1100–1300px container is the minority among strong sites and
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the usual frame of the ones the panel called stock.
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- **Text hangs from an off-centre line.** About 22 anchor text to one fixed line that is neither the
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centre nor the margin: a third across, 42%, the midpoint.
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- **Two or three type sizes with nothing between** (about 30): one very large with one small, or
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everything small with the scale given to the image.
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- **One thing per screen** (about 20): one statement, one object, one project.
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- **Sections told apart by their ground.** About 20 change the whole background colour at each
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section; about 12 alternate light and dark; about 10 never change and separate by space alone.
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- **Sections recomposed, not repeated.** About 14 rearrange every section; about 12 alternate a
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full-bleed image screen with a near-empty type screen.
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- **The system broken once, on purpose** (about 14): one centred line on a split page, one paper card
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on a dark page, colour held back until the last screen.
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- **Often no navigation bar** (about 45), and endings that are a designed scene rather than link
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columns.
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- **Few words.** Median 575 on the whole study; some of the best carry under 200.
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## 2. Margins and the grid
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```css
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:root {
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--margin: clamp(1rem, 2.2vw, 2rem); /* 16–32px: tight, so content reaches the edges */
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--gutter: clamp(0.75rem, 1.4vw, 1.5rem);
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}
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.wrap { padding-inline: var(--margin); }
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.grid { display: grid; grid-template-columns: repeat(12, minmax(0, 1fr)); column-gap: var(--gutter); }
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```
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- One pair of margins and one grid for the whole page. Every left edge is a column line.
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- Do not wrap the page in a `max-width: 1200px; margin: auto` container by reflex. Let large things
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(type, images, colour fields) run the full width, and constrain only the measure of running text
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(`max-width` in `ch` on the paragraph, not on the page).
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- On very wide screens cap the layout at about 1760–1920px, or let type sized in `vw` stop growing with
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a `clamp()`.
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- Directions that call for wide margins (uneven photographs, the quiet instrument) say so on the
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sheet; follow the sheet.
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- Never draw the grid. Column lines, crosshairs and guides are banned ornaments here even though they
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are fashionable; the grid is felt through alignment.
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## 3. Where text sits
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- **Pick the anchor line and reuse it.** If the hero headline starts at column 5, the section
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headings, the pricing figure and the footer links start there too. Two or three anchor lines on a
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whole page; six means nothing was decided.
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- **Off-centre beats centred.** A heading in the left third with its paragraph in the far-right
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column on the same baseline and nothing between; a headline in the bottom third under a deliberate
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void; text docked in corners with the middle given to the picture.
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- **Opposite ends.** Two short texts at opposite ends of one baseline (name left, one-line description
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right) is the commonest alternative to the centred stack.
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- **Centred is a decision.** When a strong page centres, it uses one axis with wide empty flanks and a
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single element per screen, not a centred stack of heading, paragraph and two buttons.
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- **Rows for long copy:** heading in the left third, body in the right two-thirds, the same split for
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every row on the page.
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- Stagger sparingly: a second line indented by a third so a two-line headline steps across the screen.
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## 4. Empty space
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Empty space is placed, not left over. In the study of 97 Sites of the Day captured in October 2026,
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readers judged every large empty area either a rest, which something closes, or a hole, which nothing
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closes. Strong sites have plenty of rests. About half of them still leave at least one hole, and the
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holes are what visitors name ("big random blank spaces").
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**A void is placed when something closes it.** In the readers' notes the closer is, most often:
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- the picture itself (sky, ground, the object, the film) with the type docked at its edge;
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- a picture across the void: the photograph at the far side of an empty band, the full-width row
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rising under a statement, the opposite picture in a stagger;
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- the type: a headline large enough to span the space, or two short texts at the two ends of one
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baseline;
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- on a one-screen page, the wordmark, the navigation and one fact in the corners, like a mount around
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a print.
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About one closer in five in the study is a hairline or grid line. That device is banned here; close the
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void with the picture, the type, a step in ground tone or a field of flat colour.
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**Where holes come from.** In order of frequency in the study:
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1. A gap between sections stretched too far: bands of 250–760px of plain ground.
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2. Text in one half of a section and nothing in the other.
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3. Content that arrives late: a reveal not yet fired, so the visitor scrolls onto bare ground while the
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words fade in.
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4. A short block stretched to a full screen: a footer padded to the viewport height, a section title
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alone on a whole screen.
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5. A pinned scene that holds almost nothing for several screens.
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6. Pictures of different heights top-aligned in a row, leaving a hole under the short one.
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**Rules**
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- Decide where the void is and name what closes it. If nothing does, it is a hole: move the section's
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picture into it, make the main element bigger, or take the space out.
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- Keep the void clean: no stray caption, no decorative shape, no faint watermark, no grid lines.
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- Sections sit 120–240px apart on desktop, counted from the last line of one to the first line of the
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next (the median in the study is about 230–250px), and 72–112px on a phone. A change of ground
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colour lets the gap be a little smaller. More than about 40% of a screen of plain ground between two
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sections is a hole.
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- The gap between sections is clearly larger than any gap inside one. Related things sit close and
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unrelated things far; a heading has at least twice as much space above it as below.
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- No stretch of the page taller than about half a screen holds nothing at all. In the study, runs of a
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screen or more with nothing in the page were almost always scroll distance for a pinned scene; the
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pinned stage must then hold something at every scroll position.
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- Content is in place on the first paint. An entrance moves what is already there (see `motion.md`);
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it never leaves a screen of bare ground while the words arrive.
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- Size a section to its content. `min-height: 100vh` belongs to a section that fills the screen, not
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to a footer or a lone heading.
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- In a row of pictures of different heights, align the bottoms or put something under the short one,
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or crop the row to one ratio.
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- A rest is one thing on a screen: a single line, one object, one picture or a field of colour. Once
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per page at most. A screen of nothing is never a rest, and the inspector fails two near-empty screens.
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- When a section looks empty, the answer is almost never "add something". Make the main element
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bigger, or cut the section.
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## 5. The frame: margins, balance and titles
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The frame is what readers judge before any detail: "no good margin", "everything is shifted to one
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side", "no clear title", "random unclear sections". The inspector measures each of these. The numbers
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are from the study of 97 Sites of the Day (October 2026).
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**One pair of equal margins.**
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- The left and right margins are the same, at every width. On the studied sites with scrolling
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sections the two sides match to a few pixels: 16 and 16, 20 and 21, 32 and 32, 140 and 137. No
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strong page in the study was pushed to one side.
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- The usual margin is tight: median about 28px at 1440, half the sites between about 18 and 45px, a
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few at 80px or more. Here it is 16–32px (section 2), and never under 16px at any width, on the phone
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included. About one award site in seven sets text 8–15px from the edge; that studio habit is
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excluded here.
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- The navigation sits on the same margins as the content. The commonest small fault in the study is a
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header on one inset and the page on another (40px against 20px, or 34px on the left against 10px on
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the right).
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- A bleed is deliberate and starts from the margin: a row of pictures that runs off the right edge
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begins on the left margin; a display line that bleeds starts or ends on one. A bleed never moves the
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margin.
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- Asymmetry belongs inside the frame: an off-centre anchor line (a third across, 42%, the centre line)
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on symmetric margins.
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**Use the width the page has set up.**
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- In the study about one text section in a hundred leaves half the width empty. Text that sits in one
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half is common, in roughly one site in three, but the other half then holds the section's own
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picture (most often), a full-bleed picture behind the text, a second column, a list or a figure.
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- When the text takes one side, put the picture, the second column, the list or the large number on
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the other. Never leave the other half to plain ground.
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- The middle counts too: a card at the left edge and a lone button at the right with the middle third
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empty is the same hole.
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- The first screen counts too. When the sentence and the button take the left third above a name
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docked at the foot, the upper right holds something (the picture or film, one fact, the action) or
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the name grows up to meet them; in testing, 60% of a first screen left as plain ground under the
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navigation read as a hole, and the inspector now warns when one empty block takes 28% of the first
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screen or more.
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- A display line fitted to the width is fitted by measurement (a small script that sets its size from
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the content box, or SVG text with `textLength`), never by a size guessed for one face: a name that
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starts on the margin and runs a few pixels off the other edge reads as a mistake.
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- A centred composition has one axis, equal flanks and one thing on it, not a stack of heading,
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paragraph and two buttons.
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**A title that says what this is, on the first screen.**
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- Asked whether a stranger could say what the page is within five seconds, readers found that 40 of
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the 97 first screens say it in words, 42 say it only through pictures, small print or a bare name,
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and 15 do not say it at all. The last group lost usability and content points, not design points.
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- Size alone does not do it: 66 of the 97 first screens carry a display-size line, but 26 of those are
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a name, a slogan or a place with nothing saying what is offered.
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- The first screen has one `h1`, at display size (32px or more on desktop; on the clear first
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screens in the study mostly 50–150px), two lines at most, that says what this is: the name with
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what it does, the product with what it is for, the event with its date and place. If the `h1` is
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the name, the line under it, at 18px or more, says what the thing is.
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- It is there on the first paint. About a third of the studied pages still showed a loader or nothing readable 4.5
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seconds.
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**A heading on every section.**
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- 82% of the text sections on the studied sites open with a heading: median 57px (40–96px for the
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middle half), about three and a half times the body size, one or two lines.
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- Headings start on the outer margin or on the page's inner anchor line (in the study about a third
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each) and in the same place for every section. About a quarter of the headings in the study are
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centred; centre one moment per page here.
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- Where a studied section has no heading, the usual stand-in is a small label: caps, mono or a number
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in brackets. All three are banned here. Put the label's words in a heading in the heading face at the
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section size ("The rooms", "How it works", "Prices"), set them on the anchor line, and let the first
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sentence carry the rest.
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- A statement can open a section as its heading only when it names what the section holds.
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## 6. Sections: carry the idea, vary the arrangement
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The most common failure in every score band is a distinctive first screen followed by stock blocks:
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icon cards, a three-up row, an accordion, a link-column footer. About 25 of the studied sites lose
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points this way, including several above 7.5.
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- **The idea survives to the last pixel.** Ask of each section, pricing and FAQ included: what does
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the page's idea do here? If the page is a menu, the prices are menu lines. If the name is a
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monument, the footer is the name again. If the object's shape is the motif, the button and the image
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masks carry it.
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- **No two neighbours share a layout.** Use the shape of each dealt blueprint (list, split, statement,
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full-bleed, mosaic, table, strip, pinned …). Count them in the screenshot; a shape used three times
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is the template showing.
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- **Alternate dense and empty, image and type, light and dark** so the scroll has rhythm.
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- **A repeated module is for archives only** (a work index, a menu, a schedule). Anywhere else,
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repetition reads as a kit.
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- **Break the system once.** After the page has established its rule, one planned exception (a single
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centred line, one inverted section, one image at a different scale) is what makes the rule visible.
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- **Short pages are fine.** A quarter of the studied sites are one or two screens. Do not add sections
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to seem complete; each one must carry a claim (see `copy.md` §1).
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## 7. Navigation
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- The plain form: the wordmark at one end, three to five text links, one action, all at text size on
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the page ground with no bar, border or background. Median link count in the study is 3.
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- It is also normal to have less: small links in the corners, a single action, or the navigation
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folded into the content (a list of section titles that is itself the index).
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- If it stays fixed, it must never sit on top of content: check every scroll position in the
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screenshots, especially on the phone. Floating pill bars are where the panel most often recorded a
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nav covering text.
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- On a phone: wordmark and one action in view; the links go in a simple full-screen sheet opened by a
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text button ("Menu"), or move to the footer when there are only three.
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- Navigation is small furniture, however it is drawn. On desktop it takes no more than about a tenth
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of the first screen; on a phone it is one row. A blueprint that builds the navigation as a column of
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colour blocks or a stack of tabs gets that treatment on desktop only, and collapses to one row on
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the phone so the headline, the supporting sentence and the action stay in the first screen. In
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blind tests a nav that ate the hero cost a whole point of usability.
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## 8. Endings
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- The page should end on a designed scene. In the study: the name at full width (about 18 of 114), the
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hero repeated in inverted colours (about 12), a closing scene of its own such as the one contact
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fact set as a headline (about 14), or simply one quiet line (about 22). Link-column footers appear
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in the panel's notes only as criticism.
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- The full-width name is strong but already a studio habit; use it when the direction is name-led,
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otherwise prefer the blueprint dealt for the footer.
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- Put the practical facts (address, hours, email, legal line) in the text face at a readable size, on
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the same anchor lines as the rest of the page.
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## 9. The phone is a second composition
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Design the 390px screen as its own page, not the desktop page squeezed. Strong sites that neglect this
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lose usability points; weak ones are often just broken.
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- Each blueprint on the sheet has its own phone paragraph. Build it.
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- Keep one dominant thing on the first screen. A wordmark that was 20vw wide on desktop might stack on
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two lines at 26vw on the phone and be even stronger.
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- Re-author line breaks; re-crop images to portrait (`object-position` per breakpoint, or a different
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crop size in the image URL); keep unevenness with alternating widths rather than making everything
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full width.
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- Margins 16–20px. Body text 16–18px. Touch targets at least 44px high.
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- Check 390px in the inspector's screenshots for every round: sideways scroll and three-line headlines
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usually appear here first.
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## 10. How pages fail
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From the panel's notes on the 54 sites scoring under 6.8 (counts out of 54):
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- The whole page is the category's stock template; swap the logo and it could be any competitor
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(about 20).
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- Centred headline, pill badge, two buttons, screenshot or tile grid below (about 9).
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- A distinctive hero, then stock modules in the usual order (about 8, and about 17 more in the middle
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band).
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- A default typeface with no character (about 13).
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- Text too small or too low in contrast (about 13); legibility lost over busy photographs (about 9).
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- An undersized headline and no focal point (about 9).
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- The page never says what the thing is, or shows no work (about 12 and 7).
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- Thin content stretched over many screens, or a single gag (about 11).
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- Gates, preloaders and entry pop-ups before any content (about 9).
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- A phone layout that is the desktop shrunk, or broken (about 8).
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- Fixed elements sitting on content; careless details such as colliding lines (about 7 and 5).
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And the faults of the best sites, which are not to be copied: body text at 9–13px (about 24 of the 90
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sites at 7.5 or more), information hidden behind the concept (about 20), the idea running out
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mid-page (about 15), text over footage with no scrim (about 12), gates and blank first paints (about
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12), floating elements colliding with content (about 11), and a first screen with no statement of what
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this is and no action (about 9). Say what the thing is, and offer the action, on the first screen.
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