[HN Gopher] Orbit - open-source design system
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Orbit - open-source design system
Author : vepor
Score : 119 points
Date : 2021-07-14 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (beta.orbit.kiwi)
(TXT) w3m dump (beta.orbit.kiwi)
| tajul7 wrote:
| Great site. this site helpful. I love this one.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| The title ("Orbit - open-source design system documentation") is
| a bit confusing to me (I'm a technical writer so anything with
| "documentation" catches my eye). It seems like the provided link
| is just the documentation for a collection of open source web
| components? Or is the documentation itself open source? I'm not
| trying to be pedantic here, just asking in case I'm missing
| something. In other words it seems like the word "documentation"
| isn't necessary in the title in this case.
| vepor wrote:
| Yep, sorry, it's probably a bit confusing. The whole design
| system is open-source, from its components to also the
| documentation. You can find it on the GitHub repository:
| https://github.com/kiwicom/orbit/tree/master/docs
| garmaine wrote:
| Whole system of what, exactly? Title doesn't make that clear.
| vepor wrote:
| It's a design system. You can read about it more here:
| https://uxdesign.cc/everything-you-need-to-know-about-
| design...
|
| But basically it's a system how to design and develop
| applications (mostly mobile or frontend). It contains most
| of the time some visual foundation, standardized
| components, guidelines etc.
| elric wrote:
| I think the point that parent was making is that it isn't
| at all clear what orbit is about. A "design system" is
| such an extremely vague term. Houses? Cupboards?
| city41 wrote:
| "Design system" is a pretty well defined term in the
| world of UX. For example: https://uxdesign.cc/everything-
| you-need-to-know-about-design...
| garmaine wrote:
| "Design system" is pretty well defined in every field.
| And defined differently, which is the problem. I assure
| you engineering design is not the same thing. "UX design
| system" would have been better at least.
| camgunz wrote:
| It's clear it's a [D]esign system for [D]esigners when
| you go to the site and see things like Colors,
| Typography, Spacing, Tone, etc.
|
| It's fine if things are targeted! I don't expect all my
| technical documentation to fully namespace all their
| ambiguous terms in case a non-engineer shows up. This
| site is for [D]esigners and that's cool.
| radley wrote:
| Design system is common terminology for designers, akin to
| OOP.
| contravariant wrote:
| I also have some trouble figuring out which of the following
| ways to parse it
|
| (open-source) ((design system) documentation)
|
| (open-source design) (system documentation)
|
| (open-source (design system)) (documentation)
| romwell wrote:
| I call strings like that "noun soup".
|
| These nouns connect arbitrarily like molecules in a liquid,
| forming one completely opaque (and barely palatable) whole.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've taken documentation out of the title above.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| If orbit technical team reads this: How is your website so fast?
| I mean, there is literally no wait when I click anything... it's
| face peeling fast.
| vepor wrote:
| It uses https://www.gatsbyjs.com/ that does all the necessary
| magic.
| radley wrote:
| > By default, our libraries use Circular Pro, which isn't an open
| font.
|
| That's a big red flag for an open-source design system.
|
| Design-wise, the Figma files look nice but are poorly built. Most
| of the text and colors don't use styles, and the few color styles
| they use are in a private library.
|
| There's some documentation (good) but the components make a lot
| of mistakes. You're better off starting from scratch.
| a2800276 wrote:
| Is Figma open source?
| radley wrote:
| Figma is a professional design application, considered by
| many to be the most advanced: https://www.figma.com
|
| The base tier is free.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Jubed wrote:
| Title doesn't make that clear. But this is very helpful
| resources.
| erk__ wrote:
| Interestingly enough this site is blocked on the university I am
| at network "Threat detected: Integration." No idea why.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| The problem I have with all these self-promotion frameworks (i.e.
| CSS frameworks open sourced by commercial entities) is that they
| are inherently at the mercy of said companies.
|
| Take Zurb Foundation for example, as far as I can tell its
| basically become abandonware. Foundation 7 has been promised
| forever and yet we're still stuck with Foundation 6 which has all
| sorts of bugs and gotcha's that will catch people out because the
| framework is out-of-date in comparison with the technology that
| people are using to access websites.
|
| The only exception to this is Twitter Bootstrap which has been
| consistently kept up to date. Whilst I don't agree with some of
| the design decisions in the latest Bootstrap 4, it remains a
| solid, well maintained framework.
| vosper wrote:
| I think Material UI is going pretty strong, too? They've just
| released a beta of version 5.
|
| I think overall the comes-from-corporate-entity frameworks are
| probably still a better bet than the one-persons-pet-project
| ones - there are loads of those, too.
| chucky wrote:
| Material UI isn't coming from a corporation in the same way
| as the others though. Material UI is an open source
| implementation of Google's Material Design system, but it's
| not in use by Google AFAIK.
| underyx wrote:
| I used to work at Kiwi.com when Orbit was started. It grew into
| such an impressive framework! It's been advertised as "components
| for your travel site" for a long while but it's totally
| appropriate for any kind of site.
| yedpodtrzitko wrote:
| I, too, used to work at Kiwi.com when Orbit was started. If
| there was one thing which was consistent, it was definitely
| Orbit. It's nice to see they're keep pushing it forward.
| Terretta wrote:
| I found that phrase confusing -- what makes it or made it for
| travel sites in particular?
| thdxr wrote:
| I've been doing a lot of research into design systems and one
| thing that's lacking in most of these documentation sites is
| examples build with the component library. It's hard for me to
| get a feel for it without being able to click through a real
| application.
|
| Also, paid managed services on the backend are super common. I
| want a paid frontend component library. There are very few of
| these and I think there's room for an all star frontend team to
| sell professionally maintained, always improving components. Even
| on day 1 of my company I'd be willing to pay $100s a month for
| this
| radley wrote:
| > one thing that's lacking in most of these documentation sites
| is examples build with the component library
|
| Check out their main site kiwi.com for examples.
|
| This is part of a trend with enterprise design teams of open-
| sourcing their design systems. In some cases, there are direct
| benefits to clients and partners. Otherwise, it's a status
| project / time-filler.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| There are a few such as Tailwind UI that are paid-for component
| libraries. https://tailwindui.com
| arcturus17 wrote:
| Many companies do that for enterprise components, especially
| graphs and tables.
|
| For more general use I guess it's hard to compete with the
| likes of Material UI.
| milanseitler wrote:
| There's not many open-source design system documentations, that's
| a big plus
| thebeardisred wrote:
| I just wish that the getting started with them (for designers)
| wasn't "Step 1: start by logging into Figma"
| milanseitler wrote:
| That's for Kiwi employees, open source content is in the
| other tab
| ssddanbrown wrote:
| Just in the interest of transparency, You're posting this
| positive comment as someone that actively works on this
| project?
| mxstbr wrote:
| I'm a big fan of Orbit and regularly check out their docs just to
| see what's new! They're so well done.
| foolinaround wrote:
| What is specific in this UI design system pertaining to 'travel
| projects'?
| omk wrote:
| This was the most confusing bit for me. Is the author
| exercising some figure of speech or is it literally meant for
| travel project?
| fumplethumb wrote:
| I was also confused about this. It appears this library
| includes components specifically geared for travel-oriented
| applications. Still seems like most of the components are
| pretty generic, but here are some examples that stood out to
| me:
|
| - Seat: https://beta.orbit.kiwi/components/visuals/seat/
|
| - Stopover arrow:
| https://beta.orbit.kiwi/components/visuals/stopoverarrow/
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(page generated 2021-07-14 23:02 UTC)