FAQs
About Carbon
What is the Carbon Design System?
Carbon is the open-source design system for all IBM software products. It is a series of individual styles, components, and guidelines used for creating unified product experiences.
To learn more about how we work check out What is Carbon.
Who works on Carbon?
Carbon has a core team of designers and front-end developers dedicated to developing and supporting the system. There are also countless other designers and developers who contribute back to carbon-components and carbon-react.
Contributing
How can I contribute and/or propose new components or ideas?
Check out our contribution overview to learn all about the different ways to contribute. Thanks for the help!
I see a bug. How do I report it?
First, make sure the problem is reproducible. Once confirmed, open an issue in the appropriate GitHub repo from the following list. We will address the bug as soon as we can. If you have a fix for the bug, please feel free to submit a PR for it.
For larger changes, please see our contribution overview.
Design issue repos
Code repos
- carbon-components-react
- carbon-components-angular
- carbon-components-vanilla
- carbon-components-vue
- carbon-charts
What can I expect for a response to my bug report?
If you have a pressing bug or change it is best to make PR for the issue yourself. Our team works in sprints and will try to address your bug as soon as possible; sometimes within two or three days, but usually by the following sprint. Issues that are out of scope will be closed until they become a higher priority.
Typical responses to bug reports will include:
- Need more info, can’t reproduce the problem
- Won’t fix, this isn’t something we intend to support
- Confirmed, will add to our roadmap (Carbon team will fix)
- Confirmed, will accept PRs (need external member to fix)
- Need to include design to verify this behavior is supported
What should I do if I find a component that isn’t accessible?
First, refer to the Carbon accessibility guidelines to confirm that the component fails accessibility standards. If confirmed, create a GitHub issue in the Components repo and describe the steps to reproduce the problem. If the core Carbon team confirms the problem, we will work to fix it as quickly as possible.
Creating with Carbon
Which browsers are supported?
Carbon components are supported in the following browsers:
- IE11
- Microsoft Edge latest
- Firefox latest
- Chrome latest
- Safari latest
What languages are the components written in?
Carbon is built React first. We also support vanilla JS, Angular, Vue, and Svelte implementations. Check out Frameworks to learn more about what you need to get started with Carbon implementations.
Where do I find mobile components?
We are currently working on a Carbon mobile Sketch kit. This kit is a work in progress but is an opportunity for you to preview what we’re working on and provide early feedback. Find the kit on the Work in progress page.
Where do I find the Experimental components and patterns?
The patterns and components that were in Experimental are now in the Community assets section. Community assets include work developed and maintained by the individuals and teams who use Carbon. You can help elevate these resources by contributing feedback, code, and design.
Note that some of the content in Community assets is hosted on internal IBM sites and is only accessible to IBMers.
Where do I find charts and data visualization?
Carbon charts and their corresponding assets and documentation are now in the Data visualization section.