IBM Carbon & Watson Analytics
One design language for every IBM product team.
Watson Analytics needed to feel like IBM, and IBM needed one language its teams could build on. Carbon became it: open source, working code, a community beyond the company.
Situation
An analyst opening Watson Analytics and then the next IBM product met two interfaces, two vocabularies and two teams solving the same problems.
Task
Lead product and front-end design for Watson Analytics on Carbon, and help make Carbon the language every team adopts.
Action
Build the product and the system in the same motion.
Components earned in a product
Data-dense analytics patterns designed in Watson Analytics, contributed back to Carbon.
Code, not pictures
The system shipped as installable code beside the guidelines.
Open by default
Contributing in the open drew teams from across IBM, then beyond it.
Result
Carbon is IBM’s design language.
Business
20M+ ibm.com pages and the product portfolio on one design language.
Product
Open source since 2017, version 11, seven platforms; the data-dense analytics patterns from Watson Analytics live in the system.