Building a Design System like Uber and Airbnb Bits and Pieces

Table Of Content

• How We Build a Design System
• As the company has grown, what have you learned about implementing design thinking in a large organisation?
• Connecting Brand and UI
• How do you apply those two principles in practice?
• Document new principles every step of the way
• How We Build Micro Frontends
• Building a design system with components to standardize and scale our UI development process.

Implementing SSOT also makes sure that everyone is familiar with the vocabulary that will be used during the project. This eliminates the possibilities of miscommunications and leads to better conversations and discussions between designers and developers. One great advantage of the Airbnb design system is that it makes communication seamless.

How We Build a Design System

We toned down some of Cereal’s more expressive forms to create a better, more simple texture for the reader. The model was set up using a simple Node.js program that generated titles, paragraphs, and short stories. These were then uploaded to the cloud, turned to a different set of content over JSON, and rendered on the site. Marketing and product UI typically used typography to serve different purposes. While marketing aims to set a strong brand expression, UI aims to connect to the brand while functioning within complex, often-changing environments.

As the company has grown, what have you learned about implementing design thinking in a large organisation?

Add coat stands in the foyer or a chalk board in the kitchen with some quick recipes jotted down. Place an ottoman in the lounge for travelers’ weary feet after a day of sight-seeing, or make sure there are enough towel pegs in the bathroom to hang extra fluffy towels. It’s not just about the property — it includes details about amenities, rules, the host, the neighborhood, and much more. By giving users this depth of information, Airbnb enhances the user experience.

Connecting Brand and UI

The design remains the same whether you’re using Airbnb on your phone, tablet, or computer. This consistency creates an environment where users can navigate easily, no matter their device. Airbnb leverages high-quality visuals to connect users with potential stays.

Typographic decisions are usually made on a brand level—with considerations for look, feel, and accurate expression of a brand’s desired direction. It’s often referenced that 90% of UI is text, which holds true for Airbnb, so changing the typeface brought a significant change to our UI design. The team at designsystems.com is always looking for interesting content. Firstly, you want your guests to feel as though the space has been thoughtfully designed with their needs in mind. It doesn’t cost a lot to craft something a little more special!

Document new principles every step of the way

Individual disciplines also have stand-ups weekly, where most (if not all) of the week's work gets an update. I try to personally meet with different people from the team as much as possible, but it's become harder as it has grown to over 100. Everyone is free to pick up and work in the many open spaces distributed around the office. Something at this scale is never easy and there are many ways to define what a component is, how atomic you should be in your definitions, what's called what. These are the conversations that improve the system and since its launch six months ago it's only become a bigger part of the conversation at Airbnb.

Airbnb’s new open source library lets you design with React and render to Sketch - TechCrunch

Airbnb’s new open source library lets you design with React and render to Sketch.

Posted: Tue, 25 Apr 2017 07:00:00 GMT [source]

If you've got lots of light furnishings and pale walls, pops of black can add the perfect edge. In this video, a black accent wall makes a strong statement as you enter the apartment. The color is repeated in the bedroom, on the kitchen island, and on the dining room ceiling, which creates cohesion. If you're not keen on feature walls, keep in mind that you can achieve a similar, just subtler effect with small items like lamps, art, side tables, and accent chairs. Picking a single accent color per room is an easy way to start.

Building a design system with components to standardize and scale our UI development process.

These elements are both defined in the Sketch document as well as in code. Instead of allowing divider lines themselves, we require each component to have a divider, which is then visible or hidden based on on the view logic. We have a team dedicated to building and integrating tools for our designers; everything from asset integration into Sketch to prototyping environments. Having access to everything quickly is crucial, whether it's an icon or a piece of research. The root cause behind the additive behaviour is that it was difficult to track whether a CSS selector was still used by some part of the codebase. The problem was particularly acute when it came to positioning and layout.

Promotes Consistency

And like the rest of our design language system, their style is fairly minimal and lightweight. Intentional white space brings a nice balance so illustrations don’t take away from the context they’re in. It’s also important that they scale across places, platforms, and devices at many different sizes.

This makes designing extremely convenient when you start expanding your Airbnb design language system. It allows you to use advanced formatting and you could also add some codes. 1- The first thing you need to do is to click the create design system button. You could either use the pre-existing resources or Airbnb design system sketch files or start from scratch. Each design system is divided into multiple parts where you could include your resources.

Companies like Uber, Pinterest, Airbnb, Walmart, Atlasssian and many more achieve consistency in their UI through a component-based design system. In today’s ecosystem, UI components can also function as UX components, combining the power to create both functional and visual consistency. Users know how an element behave, and therefore will also feel more safe and secure to interact with it even on a page / screen they visit for the first time. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the legacy style of tech illustration—cartoon people outlined in blue or grey.

With UI typography, the content, screen sizes, and qualities are dynamic—text size, copy length, format, and device resolution all vary. The UI must support complex or critical moments when the community needs to read, understand, or take action based on the information provided, while connecting back to the brand. Our business needs included brand differentiation, the ability to span brand and product, and text legibility in the UI. Through research, user testing, and observation over the years, we learned that, especially in small sizes, the our previous typeface was hard to read.

This allowed designers to receive nearly real time feedback, and to keep moving things forward. In the second week, the product-and-system pair presented their work to their respective teams together, and received guidance from engineering, data science, and content strategy. As a result of the co-design sprint and support from additional teams, the pattern was updated in the product and submitted to our DLS component template for all teams to use. Airbnb's mission is all about making people feel at home – whether that's during a stay with one of its hosts or on its website. That means communicating effectively with a global user base, and building a design language that can scale with the company as it continues on its meteoric trajectory.

With the number of teams using our system, evolving a growing system is only natural. It’s essential to have a resource between engineering and design (like me) so your design system remains useful, relevant, and up-to-date. On occasion, a team component replaces an existing component because the new component offers a more robust option to many teams. Continuously auditing will help keep your system lean and filled with Swiss Army knife like design options. Hanging lighting always completes a tailor-made look and is often the central showstopper element in a room. Glass pendants are also a nice option for something a bit more special.