Color System for Task Management App - Task Flow

Great job explaining your thought process behind this project Shashikant. Your choices make a lot of sense to me and I appreciate you testing them for accessibility.

Now, I wish I could see a mockup of what the colors would look like in action for a better idea of how (and if) they would work together.

The deliverable format is also hard to read. Fonts are too small.

Strong concept and rationale; tighten documentation with tokens, usage examples, and measurable accessibility.

What’s working

You’ve articulated a clear intent, calm, confident, and personable, and anchored it in familiar task‑tool paradigms. The choice of Teal as the primary, with Amber and Violet supporting, feels coherent. Referencing accessibility via WebAIM is a solid signal of craft.

“I chose Teal as the heart of the palette…”

“I used WebAIM to check the accessibility…”⁠

Where to improve (actionable)

Palette structure and tokens

• Define a full ramp for each brand color: Primary (Teal 50–900), Amber 50–900, Violet 50–900, plus Neutral (e.g., Gray 25–950). Document hex, HSL, and semantic aliases.
• Add semantic tokens that map intent, not hue: Brand: brand/fg, brand/bg, brand/border
• Typography: text/default, text/subtle, text/inverse
• UI: surface/default, surface/subtle, border/subtle, overlay/scrim
• States: focus, hover, pressed, disabled
• System: success, warning, error, info (fg/bg/border pairs)

Accessibility: make it measurable

• Include target ratios next to each token: text AA 4.5:1, large text 3:1, non‑text UI 3:1. Provide example pairings that pass both light and dark themes.
• Specify rules for using Amber and Violet in text vs. backgrounds; e.g., Amber as accent on neutral surfaces, never as small text on light backgrounds unless it passes 4.5:1.
• Document focus visible styling: a high‑contrast focus ring (not just color change) with minimum 2px offset and 3:1 contrast against adjacent colors.

Usage guidelines and mockups

• Show the palette “in action” across common task‑app surfaces: Navigation, boards/lists, cards, tags, toasts, dialogs, empty states.
• Primary button vs. secondary vs. tertiary; destructive and success flows.
• Demonstrate state changes with color: default, hover, pressed, disabled, loading. Pair color with shape, weight, and motion for redundancy.
• Include examples where Amber draws attention for alerts or due‑soon tags without feeling aggressive; Violet for creative filters or templates.

Theming and dark mode

• Provide light and dark theme tokens with a clear mapping strategy (e.g., surface/default flips from Gray‑50 to Gray‑950; text/inverse flips accordingly).
• Show how system colors adapt in dark mode to avoid “glow” or low contrast (tune saturation down, increase luminance contrast).

Color naming and governance

• Use semantic names first (error/bg) and color names second (teal‑500) to prevent misuse.
• Add a short decision tree: when to use brand vs. system vs. neutral; how to handle conflicts (e.g., warning in success contexts).

Documentation format and readability

• The current deliverable “fonts are too small.” Increase type scale, spacing, and contrast; add a scannable table of tokens and usage do’s/don’ts.
• Include a one‑page cheat sheet for engineers and a compact handoff section: design token names, values, and Figma styles (a spreadsheet might work here as well to document token values).

Handoff quality

• Publish a Figma library: Color Styles for each token; Components demonstrating usage; Variant properties for states.
• Provide tokens in JSON (style‑dictionary compatible) so engineering can consume them directly (depending on the library you are using with the team, for example, Tailwind, etc).