How to walk the application — three ways, same access I have

• This portal — every open decision with its before → after, the design system, and the evidence, rendered live from the real build.css. Scroll §01 and call each one.
• The live TEST application — the real applicant journey across all five programs, already live and in use by Admissions. Walk it end-to-end and flag anything; every page self-identifies its release so a comment anchors to an exact version.
• Together, live — we walk it in the meeting; anything we can fix in the room, we fix in the room (the build system has every knob wired, so iteration is fast).

Proposed agenda

1. Feedback → sign-off. Walk the live application; capture the top ~5 items, estimate effort live, and aim to leave with a clear path to sign-off (with Admissions). Many items we can fix in the meeting.
2. Migration. Process + who does what. API access is helpful but not required: with it we grab the live HTML and remediate programmatically; without it, there's a content-remediation tool Admissions can run — already in IT's hands and understood. Choose-your-own-path; every path lands at the same remediated result.
3. Post-launch. Remediating issues — design-system vs page-level design: who owns which? (Proposed: the design system + build tooling stays with me as steward; page content + decisions with Admissions.)
4. Handoff. Steady-state responsibilities. The toolset, fixtures, gates, and remediation tool are built and documented — IT holds the receipts.
5. Observations & learnings — if time; otherwise noted for follow-up.

Review/Submit links no longer look like errors Done · accessibility

Now: on the last screen before an applicant submits, the section links read as pure red and orange — colors that universally mean error/danger, here meaning "go finish this." They also failed WCAG contrast (red 4.0:1, orange 2.5:1) on the highest-anxiety, most-screenshotted page in the funnel.

Done: darkened to an accessible severity pair (#cc0000 5.89:1 · #b45309 5.02:1) with a non-color marker. Turns the scariest page in the funnel calm and accessible, and closes a real legal-exposure point on the exact page a complaint would cite. These links are editor-authored page content the stylesheet can't reach, so the fix is applied at the content source with a before/after replay check — the same engine demonstrated here.

Brand the fields applicants type into Your call low effort · low risk · highest reach

Now: buttons are confidently Yale-blue, but the text boxes, dropdowns, and text areas inherit raw OS-default chrome — no branded border, no consistent height, and no Yale focus ring. It's the one place a Yale form still reads as unbranded vendor software.

• A — light brand frame: one scoped rule (subtle border, consistent height/padding, + the Yale focus-visible ring).
• B — focus ring only.
• C — leave fully native.

Recommend A. Applicants spend nearly all their time looking at fields, not buttons — this is what makes a form page actually look like Yale. It stays strictly inside the agreed architecture: native controls, branded type/spacing only — no application machinery touched.

Your call: A (frame + ring) · B (ring only) · C (native).

One clear primary call-to-action at the front door Your call low effort · low risk

Now: som.yale.edu leads with a bold filled "Apply Now." Our apply-landing and login/register screens lead with quieter outlined buttons — and the only filled-blue button appears after the applicant is already inside a form. The strongest action is hidden deep while the entry actions whisper.

• A — keep all-outlined.
• B — promote exactly one filled-blue primary per entry screen ("Start New Application" / "Create an account"); keep the rest outlined.
• C — adopt the marketing animated-arrow link CTA.

Recommend B. The front door is where the first impression forms after leaving the marketing site; one confident primary action carries that visual confidence inward.

Your call: A (all outlined) · B (one filled primary) · C (animated link).

The navigation menu — built, dormant, gated on you Your call

Now: the application has no top navigation back into the school. A som.yale.edu-style header menu is built and accessibility-passed (WCAG 2.2 AA), sitting dormant in the deployed stylesheet — invisible until switched on. Zero-JavaScript, so it works everywhere and degrades safely.

The part that's genuinely yours: the five links it ships with — Programs, About, Faculty & Research, Events, News — are a content decision: Communications owning what applicants can reach from inside the application. External links open in a new tab, so no one ever loses their application.

Your call: menu on · off · on-with-edits to the link list. (One honest tradeoff: v1 doesn't close on Esc — zero-JS on purpose; the enhancement is ~5 lines and already queued.)

• Accessibility is justice for the unseen. Access is the applicant's right and our obligation — enforced in CI against WCAG AA (AAA-contrast where we author), at mobile and desktop. We bring receipts: render-verified, test-green, never "green on assertion."
• The burden is ours, never the applicant's. We never blame a slow device or connection — we carry the cost of performance so an applicant on a metered signal or the device they already have never pays for our bloat. Bandwidth is an equity axis: the door opens as wide on 3G as on campus Wi-Fi.
• Leaner is greener. Cheaper selectors and lighter CSS are an equity and ecological commitment — kinder to a slow device and to the grid.
• Use the institution's own resources to open the door wider. The brand layer is a disciplined fork of Slate's own template, built to be reusable so it can lift other schools too — never plundering.
• In the institution, not of it — and honest about the difference. We use the institution's own CSS to widen the door for the applicant standing at it today, and we name where the institution falls short of its own mission rather than let good UX stand in for justice. We refuse the gesture that buys redemption without changing the structure. The full, cited account — including the structural ledger of Yale in New Haven — is in the philosophy.

Full rationale, fully cited: docs/DESIGN_PHILOSOPHY.md (the lineage — Galtung, Gilmore, Robinson, Ngũgĩ, Žižek, Moten & Harney, Wilderson, Hartman, Freire, hooks).

Current state: applicant-facing branding is live on TEST across all five programs, verified to the byte; admissions reviewers are actively using it; production is gated by deliberate choice.

The proposal: a defined review window each cycle — feedback inside the window ships; feedback after it is the next cycle's scope, not a last-minute blocker. The pieces already exist (every page self-identifies its release so a comment anchors to an exact version; the feedback hub collects it). It needs backing as the process — and Communications is the right place for that.

On the radar (not an ask): the post-submission status portals run on a separate Slate rendering system and still look like the old era — the natural next phase, bigger than a restyle.