cadence-ui/docs/exec-plans/2026-03-25-motion-accessibility-and-selection-pass.md

Motion Accessibility And Selection Pass

• Status: completed
• Owner: codex
• Date: 2026-03-25

Goal

Polish the remaining low-level interaction motion gaps called out in the motion review, with an emphasis on reduced-motion correctness, selection-state feedback, and bringing lower-tier components closer to the established Command / Combobox / Tabs motion quality bar.

Scope

• In scope:
  • add explicit reduced-motion handling for continuous loader animation surfaces
  • soften Checkbox and RadioGroup selection feedback with short scale/fade indicator motion
  • give Tooltip a light rise to match the rest of the overlay family
  • reduce layout-heavy motion where it is currently doing too much work in Accordion, Sparkbar, and Progress
  • polish Select list motion so it feels closer to Combobox and Command
  • update focused tests and stories when the behavior contract changes
• Out of scope:
  • introducing new animation dependencies
  • expanding public APIs unless a small compatibility-safe prop is justified
  • broad visual restyling unrelated to motion or reduced-motion behavior

Constraints

• Respect DESIGN.md and keep one calm, spatial motion language.
• Treat packages/ui/src/components/progress* as main-thread-owned because reduced-motion and motion-refinement requirements both land there.
• Do not revert or overwrite unrelated in-progress repo changes.
• Preserve static-motion behavior through data-motion="static" and make OS-level reduced motion behave equivalently for continuous animation surfaces.

Ownership

• Main thread:
  • packages/ui/src/components/progress*
  • final review, integration, and validation
• Worker 1:
  • packages/ui/src/components/spinner.tsx
  • packages/ui/src/components/skeleton.tsx
  • nearest tests/stories if needed
• Worker 2:
  • packages/ui/src/components/checkbox*
  • packages/ui/src/components/radio-group*
  • nearest tests/stories if needed
• Worker 3:
  • packages/ui/src/components/tooltip*
  • nearest tests/stories if needed
• Worker 4:
  • packages/ui/src/components/accordion*
  • packages/ui/src/components/sparkbar*
  • nearest tests/stories if needed
• Worker 5:
  • packages/ui/src/components/select*
  • nearest tests/stories if needed

Plan

1. Write the execution plan and keep Progress under main-thread ownership.
2. Dispatch five isolated workers for loaders, selection controls, tooltip, accordion/sparkbar, and select.
3. Implement Progress reduced-motion and motion refinements locally.
4. Review and integrate the worker slices, then fix any shared token or contract issues.
5. Run focused tests for the changed surfaces and a narrow typecheck/docs pass if needed.

Validation

• pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec vitest run packages/ui/src/components/progress.test.tsx
• pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec vitest run packages/ui/src/components/checkbox.test.tsx packages/ui/src/components/radio-group.test.tsx
• pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec vitest run packages/ui/src/components/tooltip.test.tsx
• pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec vitest run packages/ui/src/components/accordion.test.tsx packages/ui/src/components/sparkbar.test.tsx
• pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec vitest run packages/ui/src/components/select.test.tsx
• pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec tsc --noEmit

Status Log

• 2026-03-25 17:18 started the focused pass after motion review identified reduced-motion gaps, low-fidelity selection feedback, and one remaining Select polish gap
• 2026-03-25 17:19 wrote the execution plan, kept progress.* under main-thread ownership, and dispatched five isolated workers for loaders, selection controls, tooltip, accordion/sparkbar, and select
• 2026-03-25 17:22 landed the main-thread Progress refactor: reduced-motion detection now collapses indeterminate animation, the linear bar scales with transform instead of animating layout width, and segmented indeterminate progress falls back to a static partial fill when motion is reduced
• 2026-03-25 17:24 reviewed and accepted worker slices for loaders, selection controls, tooltip, accordion/sparkbar, and select polish
• 2026-03-25 17:25 validated the combined result set with focused component tests plus pnpm --filter @ai-ui/ui exec tsc --noEmit and pnpm --dir apps/docs exec tsc --noEmit