@hig/theme-data

HIG theme data

HIG theme data is a representation of the HIG visual design language in the form of data.

• Getting started
  • Access theme data as ECMAScript module
  • Access theme data as JSON
  • Access theme data as SCSS variables
  • Access theme data as LESS variables
• Available themes
• Structure of a theme
  • Types of roles
    • Basic roles
    • Dimension roles
      • Color scheme roles
      • Density roles
      • Component roles
  • Resolved and unresolved roles
    • Unresolved roles
    • Resolved roles
• Extend a theme to make a new variation
• Vision
• Goals
• Strategy

Getting started

yarn add @hig/theme-data

Access theme data as ECMAScript module

import lightGrayMediumDensityTheme from '@hig/theme-data/build/esm/lightGrayMediumDensityTheme';

console.log(lightGrayMediumDensityTheme);
// {
//  "basics.borderRadii.none": "0",
//  "basics.borderRadii.small":  "0"
//  "basics.borderRadii.medium":  "2px"
// ...
// }

Access theme data as JSON

import lightGrayMediumDensityTheme from '@hig/theme-data/build/json/lightGrayMediumDensityTheme/theme.json';

console.log(lightGrayMediumDensityTheme);
// {
//  "basics.borderRadii.none": "0",
//  "basics.borderRadii.small":  "0"
//  "basics.borderRadii.medium":  "2px"
// ...
// }

Access theme data as SCSS variables

@import "@hig/theme-data/build/scss/variables/_lightGrayMediumDensityTheme.scss";

.my-component {
    background-color: $colorScheme-surfaceLevel10Color;
    color: $colorScheme-textColor;
}

Access theme data as LESS variables

@import "@hig/theme-data/build/less/variables/_lightGrayMediumDensityTheme.less";

.my-component {
    background-color: @colorScheme-surfaceLevel10Color;
    color: @colorScheme-textColor;
}

Available themes

There are eight themes made up of four color schemes a two densities each. These themes are importable in three formats from respective folders in the build folder: ESM, JSON, SCSS, and LESS

• Light gray, medium (default) and high density
• Dark gray, medium and high density
• Dark blue, medium and high density

Structure of a theme

A theme is comprised of many, many roles. Each roles defines the meaning of a value in the design system. Consider the following role—colorScheme.textColor. This roles describes the default color of text in the design system. The value for a role may vary from theme to theme. For example, a theme with a light gray color scheme may provide the value "#3c3c3c". A theme with a dark blue color scheme may provide the value "#f5f5f5".

A component can be made themable by styling it using theme data roles rather than hard-coded values.

Types of roles

Roles fall into 3 broad categories—basic roles, dimension roles, and component roles.

Basic roles

Basics are named values (colors, spacings, typographic specifications, etc.) from which (very nearly) all other values in a theme are derived. Basics do not change from theme to theme.

Dimension roles

Each themes presently has two dimensions—a color scheme, and a density.

Color scheme roles

Color scheme roles define roles related to color that change from theme to theme. They apply to many components.

A few examples of color scheme roles:

• colorScheme.textColor: The default color for text throught a theme. Value will be dark in a ligher theme, and light in a dark theme to contrast with surface colors.
• colorScheme.surfaceLevel10Color: The most prominant background color for containers in the theme. Will be lighter in a light theme, darker in a darker theme.
• colorScheme.accentColor: A bold color used to provide emphasis in the theme.

Density roles

Density roles are reoles related to information density. They change from theme to theme.

A couple of examples of density roles:

• density.fontSizes.medium: Text size for body copy in an app. Value will be smaller in a high-density theme.
• density.spacing.medium: A width of space between elements. Will be smaller in a high-density theme, larger in a lower-desnity theme.

Component roles

Component roles defined every property needed to express the design for a component in all of its states.

A few examples of component roles

• button.outline.borderColor: The default border color for an outline variant button
• button.outline.hover.borderColor: The border color of a button when the mouse is above it
• button.outline.focus.borderColor: The border color of a button when it has keyboard focus

Resolved and unresolved roles

Values in a theme may take two forms. They may be a basic value in string format (e.g. "#0696d7" or "4px") or a value may be a reference to another value. For example, textArea.focus.borderBottomColor may refer to colorScheme.accentColor, which refers to basics.colors.autodeskBlue600. Theme data source code is stored in a format that represents these relationships. These relationships are rarely needed in product, so we resolve the relatinships into a flat list of values for typical use.

Unresolved roles

An unresolved role defines a primitive value or a reference to another role in the system.

Here are some unresolved roles:

  basics.colors.autodeskBlue500: {
    type: "color", // Type is used to validate values and create documentation at development time
    value: "#0696d7" // This is a primitive value
  },
  colorScheme.accentColor: {
    type: "color",
    value: { // This is a reference to another value
      ref: "basics.colors.autodeskBlue500"
    }
  },

Resolved roles

A resolved role defines a primitive value (e.g. “#0696D7” or “16px”) in the theme system.

Here are the two previous roles after being resolved:

  basics.colors.autodeskBlue500: "#0696d7",
  colorScheme.accentColor: "#0696d7", // Value has been resolved to equal basics.colors.autodeskBlue500

Extend a theme to make a new variation

import unresolvedTheme from '@hig/theme-data/build/esm/unresolved/lightGrayMediumDensityTheme';
import { extendTheme, resolveTheme } from '@hig/theme-data';

const redAccentedUnresolvedTheme = extendTheme(unresolvedTheme.unresolvedRoles, {
    "colorScheme.accentColor": { value: "#F00" }
});
const redAccentedTheme = resolveTheme(redAccentedUnresolvedTheme);

console.log(redAccentedTheme);
// {
// ...
//  "colorScheme.accentColor": "#F00",
//  "input.focus.borderBottomColor": "#F00"
// ...
// }

Vision

• Autodesk products evolve toward a greater level of visual coherence
• Product teams can alter visual design of products with minimal developer effort

Goals

• Enable teams across Autodesk to share UI components
• Shared components are highly visually flexible
• HIG developers are not a bottleneck to collaboration

Strategy

• Deliver HIG design as data for consumption by any product regardless of tech stack
• Enable product teams to customize theme values in order to meet their needs as they see fit
• Enable product teams to extend the schema to incorporate new or product-specific components