Assets

We Want You To Contribute!

Canvas is Workday’s central design system and we regularly release centralized code, assets, components, patterns and guidelines for product teams to use. At the same time, we need people working on product teams to contribute their app-level knowledge and solutions back into the central design system, so that our releases are designed with both system and real-world product needs included.

In design system terminology this is called a Hybrid system; which is a combination of Central system content (tools and artifacts created by the central design system team and released to product teams) + Federated system content (tools and artifacts created by product teams and contributed back to the central design system). This is considered to be the most robust design system model for scaling growth, adoption and cohesion across products, and ultimately for making things easier for everyone making design decisions. Visually a Hybrid system model looks something like this:

Understanding Canvas Contribution

There are various ways to contribute to Canvas, but contribution broadly falls into the areas of:

• Code
• Assets
• Components
• Patterns
• Guidelines

Code, Asset, Component and Product Example contribution will typically be in the form of tactical solutions and documentation that you and your team have either already created and want to share for others to use, or solutions that your team would like to Canvas to release and that you and your team want to collaborate with us on creating.

Pattern and Guideline contribution will typically be in the form of design guidance and information that provides a best practice design point-of-view for others to apply.

The contribution workflow is not a one-size-fits-all process. Some forms of contribution, such as Product Examples, are a light lift for the contributor; conversely, writing a Guideline article can be a lengthy process with several incremental quality checks along the way. Ultimately, Canvas wants to make the contribution process as streamlined and easy as possible, whatever it is you’re contributing. That’s why in this section you’ll find self-guided templates, how-to videos, FAQs and support contacts. We understand the importance of federated contribution and want to make it as exciting and barrier free as possible for you to do.

Types of Asset Contribution

Icons

System Icons System Icons are symbols used to convey simple actions and functions, they are the most common icons encountered in products and help communicate metaphors at a glance.

Accent Icons Accent Icons add clarity, and visual interest, they bring delight to the experience by communicating the overall tone and meaning of a page.

Applet Icons Applet Icons convey entry points, categories of actions, or information sources on the Workday homepage.

Things to Know

• Review our icon libraries before submitting a new icon to ensure it doesn’t currently exist in the system.
• Follow the Canvas icon design guidelines to ensure visual consistency and proper formatting. The guidelines provide a process for streamlining the icon design process so it can seamlessly be added to the library.
• After you’ve submitted the form, someone from Canvas will contact you to gather more context, provide feedback on your submission, and discuss next steps.
• If you need help designing an icon, Canvas can guide you through the process. You can reference the Icon Contribution & Design Guidelines get you started with visual standards, icon rules (color, spacing, stroke, motion, etc.), layer organization, exporting, and more.

Asset Contribution Process

The Asset contribution process starts with you and your team. Once a need for a new asset has been identified, you can kick off the process and contribute your asset to the design system. The Canvas team has created guidelines to help you self-serve with the creation of assets, outlined in the sections below.

Before Submitting a Contribution

Please review our icon libraries to ensure the asset required, or something similar to it doesn’t currently exist in the Canvas Design System.

Designing An Icon

Canvas offers detailed guidelines to reference when creating an icon asset, catering for all fidelities of icons available. Utilize these guidelines and design principles to build fast, accurate assets for System, Accent and Applet icons that can be contributed directly to the design system.

Contributing Assets

When your asset is designed, or close to completion, submit it via the Contribution Request Form. Canvas will help to take your contribution through its final steps and prepare it for release. Submissions from the contribution form are reviewed weekly by Canvas and once a contribution has been approved, a ticket is created so you can track the progress of your contribution and its release. A Canvas team member will reach out to you to gather any additional context and review your contribution concepts.

If you or your team cannot design you required asset, your contribution request will be added to the Canvas backlog and later prioritized so a member of Canvas can work on it. This process can take considerably longer.

Contribution Release

New asset contributions are released every 6 weeks based on the Canvas Asset release cadence. The expected release of your contribution will be made available on your contribution’s ticket. Each release involves support from our design and development partners.

When assets are released and added to the Canvas Design Assets repository, they are ready for use by developers building with Canvas Kit. A member of the Canvas team will contact you when your contribution has been added to the Canvas repository but be sure to check your ticket’s status during the release window. Additional support from UIC is required for teams that need to use contributed assets in XO.

Updating or Enhancing Existing Assets

Updating or enhancing an existing asset is considered a breaking change. Additional work is required across the entire Workday system to ensure the update appears correctly throughout Workday’s products. The timeline for these kinds of contribution is separate from the Canvas Asset release cadence. These requests may take considerable longer to roll out.