Getting started with design
Before you dive into contributing design:
- Read the general contribution guidelines
- Check out our guiding principles
Access the Atlas Figma library
To begin contributing to design, ensure you have access to the Atlas Figma library. Figma is the primary and officially maintained design library.
Depending on your Figma account type, access may vary. Refer to the Designing with Atlas guidelines for more information on how to enable the Figma library.
Types of contributions
Design contributions generally fall into two categories:
Library updates
If you detect that something in the design library could be improved or fixed, feel free to contribute by proposing or making the necessary fix. Changes to the existing Atlas library could include, among others:
- Updating components or tokens to match the latest code implementation.
- Adding missing variants or visual states.
- Fixing inconsistencies or bugs in existing components.
- Improving layout alignment.
- Renaming or reorganizing components to follow naming conventions.
- Cleaning up deprecated assets.
Additions to Atlas
Apart from making library updates, designers can also contribute to Atlas by designing new tokens, icons, or components.
All design contributions should follow a structured and iterative process:
- Identify the need: Determine whether the new component, token, or icon will be reused across different use cases or projects. If it’s intended for a single use, avoid creating it; if it can be used in multiple contexts, proceed with the contribution.
- Research and explore: Review existing system elements, usage in products, and new projects needs. Consider doing a comparative analysis to understand how similar solutions are approached outside Wikimedia projects to gain perspective and identify best practices.
- Design: Once the need is validated, start designing the new system element. Create clear and complete specification sheets so developers can implement it more easily.
- Review and iterate: Share your design in the corresponding Phabricator task to gather feedback from Wikimedia designers and the community, and iterate the design as needed.
- Prepare for implementation: Finalize designs and specifications and share them in the task so it's ready for implementation.
- Design sign-off: Once the implementation is complete, verify that it matches the design.
- Publish and reuse: Add and publish the approved system element in the design library to be reused by other designers.
For specific types of contributions, refer to: