At current main (4f66f32e), style/design.toml gives --sd-color-tabs-label-hover the identical full-strength literal as --sd-color-tabs-label-active (lines 29-30), while the hover underline is softened (--sd-color-tabs-underline-hover, 0.62 alpha, line 33).
The effect: hovering an unselected tab renders its label in exactly the selected tab's colour — while the pointer is over the tab bar, the only remaining visual distinction for which tab is actually open is the underline's saturation. On a site that themes the tab tokens with a strong brand colour, this reads as two "active" tabs.
Proposal: soften label-hover analogously to the underline treatment (a muted/mixed form of the active colour), so the hover affordance is visible but the selected tab stays unambiguous.
For reference, the ubcode port of the tabs component has adopted a softened hover label as a deliberate divergence pending this discussion, muting the label with the same ratio the hover underline uses.
At current main (
4f66f32e),style/design.tomlgives--sd-color-tabs-label-hoverthe identical full-strength literal as--sd-color-tabs-label-active(lines 29-30), while the hover underline is softened (--sd-color-tabs-underline-hover, 0.62 alpha, line 33).The effect: hovering an unselected tab renders its label in exactly the selected tab's colour — while the pointer is over the tab bar, the only remaining visual distinction for which tab is actually open is the underline's saturation. On a site that themes the tab tokens with a strong brand colour, this reads as two "active" tabs.
Proposal: soften
label-hoveranalogously to the underline treatment (a muted/mixed form of the active colour), so the hover affordance is visible but the selected tab stays unambiguous.For reference, the ubcode port of the tabs component has adopted a softened hover label as a deliberate divergence pending this discussion, muting the label with the same ratio the hover underline uses.