Semantic
A tier of token meant to describe a general interface concept. The naming of this token should consider several kinds of user interface patterns as a group, and then name according to the purpose for that pattern.
The responsibility of these tokens is typically those who are responsible for distributing assets and resources throughout the organization. These are usually the same folks maintaining patterns, components, and other sharable parts for the organization to use. The value assigned to these tokens can be permanent or reference another token.
Example
Section titled “Example”input.critical.bdColor = color.red.500
surface.elevated.bgColor = #FFFFFF
These tokens are helpful for the following reasons:
- They support the ability for different presentations through aliasing. This unlocks features such as rebrands, user preferences, and other shared expressions.
- They expect to affect multiple places at once, usually all with the same purpose. This maintains consistency between similar experiences.
Warning
It is not uncommon for people to simplify these tokens to “any token that has meaning” via the dictionary definition of “semantic”. This is an ambiguous definition since assigning a name immediately creates a meaning for a value.
In order to avoid confusion, truly semantic tokens called intents remove the ambiguity, making their existence more clear.