How to help
The Anatomy team is striving to create an open-source, community owned design system that works for designers, developers, and content creators. If you’re interested in getting involved or have an idea to improve Anatomy, welcome aboard and please read on.
Types of contributions
There are a few ways to contribute to Anatomy.
- Propose a new component or improvement to an existing component
- Propose a new icon for either the system or decorative library or modification to an existing icon
- Propose a new token or modification to an existing token
- Propose additions or edits to documentation
- Propose process improvements
- Propose foundational changes
- Help maintain our design libraries
How we review proposals
The Anatomy team takes the following into account when evaluating proposals:
- Alignment with values and principles, foundations, and code standards
- Reusability
- Community need and added value
- We generally follow the rule of three: the proposal can be used in three different products, platforms, or digital properties
- Impact and risks
- Roadmap and capacity
Component contribution
Please follow the process outlined to propose a new component or component improvement. If you’re unsure if you should propose an addition, see our decision chart. Depending on capacity, either an Anatomy designer or the requesting designer can complete the discovery, design, or documentation phase.
What to include in your proposal
- Primary use case
- Alternate use cases
- Relevant research
- Requirements
- Platform and project information
- Timeline
Intake meeting
If your proposal is determined to be a possible candidate for the system, the Anatomy team will set up an intake meeting. The intake meeting is used to further assess the proposed work and does not guarantee implementation.
The goals of this meeting are:
- Determine scope
- Determine stakeholders
- Determine timeline
- Determine capacity and roles
- Raise any questions or risks
Discovery
The designer will conduct an audit of existing solutions and expand on research, requirements, and other possible use cases.
Design
The designer will explore designs based on existing foundations, components, and patterns. The designer will meet with the Anatomy team and the requesting team for feedback and stakeholder alignment.
Implementation
The designer will hand off specifications to the developer. The developer will build the new addition, release an update to the component library package, and demo at sprint review.
Documentation
The designer will add the new component to the design library and write documentation. If the designer is the requestor, they will review the proposed additions with the Anatomy team.
Icon contribution
If you’d like to propose a new icon or icon improvement for either the system icon library or decorative library, follow the steps outlined on icon guidelines.
Other contributions
If you’d like to
- Propose a new token or modification to an existing token
- Propose additions or edits to documentation
- Propose process improvements
- Help maintain our design libraries
Please email the Anatomy team with your request. You can also reach out to the team through our slack channel #proj-anatomy-design-system.