The shared brief
An inviting community for people who want to browse quietly, reconnect, or contribute. These are ways to participate, not levels people have to choose or complete.
The prototype brings together the existing Magic Patterns design, the Linear product context, the September meeting, and the October UX review. It compares two visual directions after applying the same core usability improvements to both.
A · Community scrapbook
Instrument Sans throughout. Framed photographs, warm neutral surfaces, modest rounded corners, and restrained plum accents. A small paper detail recalls an album without turning the interface into a collage.
Hypothesis: familiar, contained sections make the community approachable, while photographs provide warmth.
Watch for: whether the remaining card boundaries still make the page feel fragmented.
Open A ↗B · Community magazine
Source Serif 4 for stories and headings, with Instrument Sans for controls. Open columns, flat photographs, fine rules, and fewer enclosing boxes. The same plum and warm neutral family connects it to the current identity.
Hypothesis: editorial hierarchy makes a full page easier to read and gives memories room to carry the experience.
Watch for: whether it feels too formal or makes interactive elements less obvious.
Open B ↗The palette comes from the active Magic Patterns restraint pass. B’s serif heading treatment is an intentional experiment, not a change to the adopted portal typography. Neither direction changes the CRM design system.
Both directions use one dataset and one renderer. Names, photographs, copy, section order, navigation, filters, and interaction behavior are shared. Styling changes the framing and emphasis. There is no separate feature set hidden behind either treatment.
The comparison controls belong to the review environment. They are not proposed member-facing controls. Each frame responds to its actual width; choose A or B alone for a full desktop view, or Phone for a narrow layout.
| Source concern | Visible response in both directions |
|---|---|
| Fullness without overload | Real source photographs, human text, people, events, and the letter remain. One primary area gets emphasis; repeated contribution requests, product announcements, and competing metrics are removed from Home. |
| Quiet participation | Reading and looking are rewarding first actions. No completion score, leaderboard, mandatory contribution, or activity streak. |
| Directory complexity | A readable list is the default. “Here when I was” and “Everyone” are explicit. Search uses displayed names. Ken’s second period of involvement counts toward overlap. |
| Phone navigation failures | Home, People, Archive, and Events remain visible. More names secondary destinations. The labeled account route stays available. A selected person opens immediately in a dialog with focus management. |
| Rich history and relevance | The member’s years lead discovery, but all years remain available. Photos, memories, and a transcript offer different entry points. A family/friend fixture without known years remains part of the directory. |
| Small early community | The Quiet scenario has three directory members, no overlap, three archive items, no new updates, and no upcoming events. The page offers existing value rather than inventing activity. |
| September’s present-day wall | The reviewer can enable or remove two fictional everyday updates in both directions. A reversible acknowledgement demonstrates the simplest response. No comments, posting, popularity counts, or ranking are implied. |
| Different return habits | Events are chronological, including an online gathering. The latest sample letter is labeled “Community letter,” with Voices as its publication title. No claim that an August fixture is this month’s issue. |
| Trust and open boundaries | No real submissions, waves, invitations, or RSVPs. Account and detail panels explicitly identify the behavior awaiting a decision. The contribution path stops at a local draft. |
The conversation explicitly recognizes that these boundaries still need work. The prototype demonstrates access to the relevant areas without treating any disputed rule as approved.
Recovery birthdays, program check-ins, exit invitations, memorial giving, and rollout sequencing remain in the broader discussion. They do not need to appear in this Home comparison to remain in scope for product decisions. In particular, birthdays should not imply automatic public celebration, and program feedback should not make community browsing feel like assessment.
Compare clarity, warmth, legibility, perceived content richness, and confidence about what happens next. Ask “Where would you go?” before giving a tour. Alternate the order of A and B when showing others. These are hypotheses for a qualitative review; no user-testing results are claimed.
This round includes Home, People/search, Archive/filters, detail dialogs, saved items, event details, the letter, the community wall, a reachable account, and a memory draft. State lasts only while each preview page remains open. Reset both reloads the frames.
Joining, verification, real connection requests, contribution review, and RSVP changes belong in the next behavioral prototype after choosing a visual direction and resolving their disclosure rules. The five journeys in the UX report remain the next interaction brief.
Photos reference the same remote image URLs used by the source prototype. Portraits are generated placeholders. Names, dates, historical captions, and archive attribution remain design fixtures; they have not been independently verified. Wall copy is newly written fictional sample content. External images and web fonts need an internet connection; system fonts provide a fallback.
21de12e5-9f11-4088-8d83-1b8515ec67b5.apps/portal/docs/product-requirements.md and apps/portal/docs/deferred-and-scope.md. Older requirements and newer prototype ideas are not assumed to be fully reconciled.