Wayfinding Field
orient the visitor in a navigation bar by surfacing where they are and what is adjacent
Running the actual recipe live via applyRecipe() — not a mock.
"Wayfinding Field" — orient the visitor in a navigation bar by surfacing where they are and what is adjacent. It has a attract layer (draw matter into a focus / well), a tether layer (bind matter to an anchor), and a cohesion layer (flocking — pull toward neighbours). The active render stack is field-lines, heatmap.
Applied signals-only (render: []) over the nav: the simulation and feedback run, no canvas is drawn, and the only output is CSS custom properties on the links. The current route is a gravity well; conserved attention brightens the destinations nearest it while the rest recede; cohesion writes --field-coherence so adjacency surfaces. The declared render layers (field-lines, heatmap) are the visual vocabulary when the field is drawn — e.g. a field-line traced wordmark → current destination.
Copy this recipe
<field-root></field-root>
<div data-body="attract" data-strength="1.1" data-range="300" data-feedback></div>
<div data-body="tether" data-strength="0.6" data-range="240"></div>
<div data-body="cohesion" data-strength="0.5" data-range="260" data-feedback></div> See also
- Priority Well make important elements feel naturally weighted without shouting
- Focus Orbit keep related options moving around the active item
- Search Relevance Field let search results settle by relevance, confidence, and recency
- Reading Field make long content pages reveal attention, memory, and concept links
- Attention Weather show system urgency, density, and activity across a dashboard
- Command Intent Field let command palettes settle around likely intent