Contribute design
Design contributions can involve anything from creating design specs for feature requests to maintaining Figma libraries. Below you’ll find tips and best practices to get started.
Step 1: Find a project
New issues submitted by the community are initially triaged by Carbon team members. Any issue that the Carbon team accepts, but can not fit in their roadmap, is open for community contribution.
Volunteer for existing work
The best way to volunteer is to look through
existing GitHub issues
labeled with needs: community contribution. Any issue labeled with
needs: design contribution is fair game! Put a comment in the issue saying
you’d like to help.
The most common design requests are related to feature enhancements: researching UX, creating visual solutions, and crafting a design spec are often required before a feature enhancement can be put into code.
If you want to join an issue that is already assigned to someone or has a specific milestone, please discuss with the assignee of the issue or with the Carbon team to coordinate. Often contributors work in groups of 2-3.
We also have many ongoing projects to create and update reusable components in Figma. This work is not currently tracked in GitHub, so check out the status of design kits and get involved by reaching out to the contacts listed.
The Carbon team is also happy to help you. Just stop by our Carbon Design office hours or contact us directly.
Submit an idea
Have a new idea that you think would benefit Carbon? Or do you need to report a bug? First, be sure to look through the issue backlog to make sure it is a novel idea or bug. Then, file your proposal on GitHub using the issue templates. If you’re willing to work on this idea yourself, be sure to let us know in your issue! Your idea will then go through a triage process by the Carbon team.
Step 2: Refine the issue
Whereas code contributions tend to be well defined, design contributions can be a little more ambiguous. We recommend you try writing a rough task list of what you believe your contribution will entail, and post it in the GitHub issue comments. In most cases, we recommend you then reach out to the Carbon team or come to Carbon Design office hours. We’ll help you further refine your issue, clarify the scope of work, and connect you to other collaborators. Some good questions to ask yourself are:
- Am I clear on the scope of this work?
- Is this task list feasible for me to do?
- Do I need to collaborate with anyone else?
- Do I have a clear definition of done or a plan to pass this to a developer?
Step 3: Get feedback
Most contributors work in groups of 2-3 and either set up weekly sessions or join meetups such as the Data Viz Guild or Carbon Design office hours. In these sessions, it is common to share work in progress and ask lots of questions. In return, you’ll get candid feedback and help. As you make progress, update your GitHub issue.