Signals Colour, type and surface
Cards inside cards
- Category
- Colour, type and surface
- Direction
- Pushes the score up
- Weight
- +8
What it is
The visual defaults, applied unedited. Looks are the weakest evidence in the whole set. Anyone can reach for a gradient on purpose, which is why craft damps this entire category.
How it is weighted
8 points is mid-weight: real evidence, not a smoking gun. On its own it moves the number a few points.
What to do about it
Flatten the boxes. Pick the one thing on each section that matters and give it the elevation; let everything else sit on the page ground.
Where it fires
Of the homepages we scan as worked examples, this signal fired on 3:
- tailwindcss.com 75/100 — 14 card surfaces sitting inside other card surfaces. Everything gets a box, everything gets equal emphasis, and nothing reads as primary.
- cloudflare.com 17/100 — 2 card surfaces sitting inside other card surfaces. Everything gets a box, everything gets equal emphasis, and nothing reads as primary.
- v0.app 37/100 — 6 card surfaces sitting inside other card surfaces. Everything gets a box, everything gets equal emphasis, and nothing reads as primary.