Hearth

Best for

• In-home aged care and NDIS providers. It's written to the Aged Care Act 2024 and its Statement of Rights, Support at Home budgets and contributions (including the personal care change from 1 October 2026), the NDIS Code of Conduct and pricing rules, and the right to complain without losing care (see "Care: what we build in").
• Anyone who visits people at home on a regular schedule:
  • community transport (Ridewell: regular rides and who's picking you up)
  • dog walkers and pet sitters (Walkies: a dog's week and who's coming)
  • cleaners, gardeners, home nursing, allied health home visits
• Audiences: older people and their families, people with disability and their supporters, and anyone reading on a phone with larger text turned on.

Less suited to: a hospital or GP clinic (Pebble or Strata), a residential aged care home (it needs room bookings and accommodation pricing), or a retirement village sales site.

Personality and voice

Warm and plain-spoken, the care partner who sits at the kitchen table and explains it twice if you ask.

• Headlines: "Help at home, on your terms." · "Plan your week, your way." · "If something's not right."
• Buttons: "Talk to us" · "Ask for a call back" · "Send the change"
• Microcopy:
  • "You'd pay each quarter: $412, about $31.70 a week."
  • "That's more than level 3 covers each quarter. You could pay the difference yourself, use fewer hours, or ask about a reassessment."
  • "Raising a concern will never affect your care."
• Words to avoid: "elderly", "suffers from", "patients" for clients, "packages" (it's Support at Home now), "free" without saying who pays, testimonials or star ratings, and jargon without a plain explanation beside it.

Colour

Measured contrast (WCAG). Hearth aims for AAA (7:1) on its accent, because many readers are older.

• Daytime:
  • ink on paper 16.0:1
  • muted on paper 6.9:1 (6.2:1 on well)
  • leaf on paper 8.0:1 (7.1:1 on well, 7.3:1 on its soft fill), white on leaf 8.6:1
  • ink on marigold 9.8:1; marigold ink 6.8:1 (6.4:1 on its soft fill)
  • ok 6.5:1, alert 6.5:1
• Evening:
  • ink 15.6:1
  • muted 7.0:1 (6.3:1 on card)
  • leaf 10.4:1 (9.3:1 on card), text on leaf 9.3:1, leaf on its soft fill 9.1:1
  • marigold 10.2:1 (9.0:1 on its soft fill)
  • ok 9.3:1, alert 7.9:1
• Closing card: text 13.9:1, body 10.5:1, marigold em 9.1:1, ink on its marigold button 9.8:1.
• Example dials: blue (Ridewell, white on blue 8.4:1), terracotta (Walkies, 7.5:1) and eucalypt teal (Wattle & Co, 8.3:1) all meet AAA for their accent text on paper, light and dark.

Typography

• Display: Lora, 500–700 with italics. Headlines and the big figures. A friendly book serif, like a letter from someone who knows you.
• Body: Andika, 400 and 700. Designed so every letter is clear and distinct, for people learning to read or reading with low vision. Set at 18px.
• Mono: Inconsolata, 400–600. Dollars, times and phone numbers.

The signature move: the lit words glow. They turn leaf-green italic and a warm marigold light rises behind them, softly flickering like a hearth.

Layout

• Frame: a 1200px wrap with a max(20px, 4vw) gutter. An ink top line with a marigold label; a sticky header with the house mark; a tall arched window behind the hero, lit from inside.
• Hero: copy on the left; the contribution estimator on the right.
• Then: the week planner full width; the visit card beside how visits work; the rights card beside "it will never affect your care"; questions; and a dark closing card with a lit window.

Shape

• Soft: --r-s 10px, --r-m 16px, --r-l 24px, buttons at least 52px tall.
• Home: the house mark, the tag's little house, arched windows in the hero, page heads and closing card, and a porch light, all drawn in CSS. No images needed.

Motion language

• Glow: the light behind the lit words rises and flickers.
• Estimator: the budget bar fills (and stripes red when over), and your share slides in when it changes.
• Elsewhere: the hero window brightens and dims, the porch light breathes, "On the way" pulses, the closing window glows, and sections reveal with a rise. Motion is slow and gentle throughout.
• Motion switch in the footer ([data-motion-toggle], html.calm, remembered as site-motion, with the default from prefers-reduced-motion). Calm stops all of it.
• Evening switch ([data-theme-toggle]), remembered as site-theme; theme-color follows.

Imagery and illustration

Your own carers and clients, photographed with their written consent, doing ordinary things at home. The template draws its windows and house in CSS, so nothing is borrowed. No stock "smiling nurse holding an old hand", no images of frailty, and no client stories presented as testimonials.

Signature components

• Contribution estimator: .estimate[data-estimate] (add data-follow to take hours from the week planner) with script[data-es-data] (levels as eight quarterly budgets, rates by kind, weeks, careMgmt), containing select[data-es-level], input[data-es-status] radios (full, part, self), .es-part with input[data-es-part] and [data-es-part-out], input[data-es-h] sliders (clinical, personal, independence, everyday) with [data-es-h-out], .es-bar, [data-es-used], [data-es-lines], [data-es-you], [data-es-you-wk] and [data-es-note].
• Week planner: .week[data-week] with script[data-wk-data] (services as {id, name, short, kind, hrs, c}, parts, days, plan as [day, part, service]), containing [data-wk-pick], [data-wk-grid], [data-wk-sum] and [data-wk-clear].
• Visit card: .visits[data-visits] with script[data-vs-data] (noticeHours), .vs cards (data-i, data-hours-away), select[data-vs-pick], a [data-vs-what] segmented control, select[data-vs-when] in [data-vs-when-box], [data-vs-go] and [data-vs-msg].
• Rights card: .rights[data-rights] with script[data-rt-data] (programs as lists of [title, html] steps), a [data-rt-prog] segmented control, .rt-urgent and ol[data-rt-steps].
• Supporting pieces: .plan-pair, .card, .facts (--n columns, or .stack), .notice, .side-box, .checks, .faq, .rt-steps (numbered steps anywhere), .close-card (--close-bg, --close-em).

Multi-page kit

• Phone menu: .menu-btn[aria-controls] opens .site-menu. Escape, an outside click or choosing a link closes it, and Tab stays inside while it's open.
• Current page: aria-current="page", shown as a soft pill.
• Inner pages: .page-head (an arched window and a porch light), .crumbs, a .tag and a smaller .h1.
• Fields: .field, .fields, .field-wide, fieldset.field-set, .check, .form-card, [aria-invalid="true"]; form[data-template].
• Tiles, segmented control, gate, slider, switch, tables: .choices, .seg, [data-gate], input.range, .switch[role=switch], .table.
• Events: estimate (level, cost, yours, over), week (hours by kind, visits), visit (index, mode), rights (program).
• Helper: Hearth.refresh(root), and Hearth.last, the latest detail of each event, for scripts that load afterwards.

Care: what we build in

We checked these for Australian home care and disability providers in October 2026:

• The Aged Care Act 2024, in force since 1 November 2025, starts with a Statement of Rights, replacing the old Charter: making your own decisions, fair access, safe and good quality care that respects who you are, privacy, communication you understand and raising concerns without reprisal, and having advocates and the people who matter to you involved.
• Support at Home budgets from 1 July 2026: eight levels, from $2,752.50 to $20,034.28 a quarter, with 10% set aside for care management, and short-term pathways for restorative care, end of life, and equipment and home changes. Amounts change each July.
• Contributions: nothing for clinical supports; independence about 5% (full pension) to about 50% (self-funded); everyday living about 17.5% to about 80%, set exactly by Services Australia. Since 1 October 2026, approved personal care sits with clinical supports, so it has no contribution, though it still uses the budget. People approved for a Home Care Package by 12 September 2024 pay no more than before. Contributions stop at a lifetime cap shared with residential care.
• NDIS: every provider and worker follows the NDIS Code of Conduct (respect, privacy, safe and competent support, integrity, protection from harm, fair pricing). Rates are at or under the price limits in the current Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits, which from 2026–27 vary by support intensity, so the template shows the provider's own rates rather than copying limits that change.
• Complaints: the provider first, then a free advocate (Older Persons Advocacy Network, 1800 700 600), then the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (1800 951 822) or the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (1800 035 544). Interpreters through TIS National, 131 450. My Aged Care, 1800 200 422.

These notes are design guidance, not legal or financial advice.

• Support at Home classifications and budgets, from 1 July 2026 (Department of Health)
• Support at Home personal care contribution changes (My Aged Care)
• Support at Home contribution rates (Aged Care Action Plan)
• The NDIS Code of Conduct: how these rules keep participants safe (NDIS Commission)
• Do you have a concern? (Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission)
• The Aged Care Act 2024 (Calvary)

Do and don't

• Do show what someone would pay, in dollars, before anything starts.
• Do put the complaints and advocacy numbers where people can find them, and say raising a concern won't affect care.
• Do write for someone reading on a phone with large text: short sentences, one idea each.
• Don't publish testimonials, star ratings or client stories about care.
• Don't hard-code NDIS price limits; show your rates and say they're at or under the limits.
• Don't put text on marigold in anything but ink.

Accessibility

• AAA contrast on the accent and AA everywhere else (measured above), 18px body text, 52px buttons, a skip link and a 3px focus ring.
• Estimator: every slider and option is labelled, with its value in words beside it; the budget used, your share and the note are announced as they change; nothing relies on the bar's colour.
• Planner: each time is a button with aria-pressed and a full label ("Tuesday morning: Personal care"); the totals are announced; on phones each booked time shows a colour square and keeps its spoken label.
• Visit card and rights card: plain selects and buttons; messages and steps are announced; phone numbers are real tel: links.
• Forms: labelled fields, errors listed in an alert, linked to and marked on each field.
• Testing: responsive to 360px, and tested with motion on and off, in Daytime and Evening.

How to make it yours