Design System documentation at massive scale
1. Context
Why the company talks about Design Systems
eBay operates a global marketplace used by millions of people across many regions, platforms and devices.
To support this scale, eBay introduced a new Design System called Evo, which defines foundations, components, brand expression, accessibility and interaction patterns across product and marketing experiences.
The answer was not just better components, but better documentation tooling and engagement.
2. The problem
What becomes difficult at scale
Previous versions of the eBay playbook focused mainly on product guidance, while brand content, accessibility, content strategy and marketing were fragmented or missing.
Documentation was hard to update because designers relied on engineers to publish changes, which led to slow feedback cycles.
Teams struggled to understand which components existed on which platforms. Spreadsheets were used to track availability, but information quickly became outdated.
3. Their approach
Principles decisions mindset
The team treated documentation as a product, not as a static website.
Three principles guided the work.
First, centralize everything. Brand, product, accessibility and engineering guidance live in one place.
Second, meet teams where they already work. Figma became the primary authoring environment.
Third, build tools that scale contribution. Documentation updates, publishing, validation and feedback needed to work without friction.
The playbook was designed to be expressive, accessible and public for the first time in eBay history.
4. What worked
Concrete learnings
The team built a full documentation toolkit in Figma, where pages are created using modular components and templates.
A custom Figma plugin lints pages, checks structure, validates accessibility content and exports everything directly to the CMS, enabling designers to publish without engineering help.
A component status API was introduced, where each platform registers components using canonical names and version metadata.
Playbook automatically pulls this data and displays real-time availability across web, iOS, Android and design libraries.
Accessibility was embedded deeply. Interactive tools show contrast, motion behavior, focus order, and reading flow, while the documentation itself models accessible design.
Engagement increased dramatically after launch, with new users, page views and time spent all growing significantly.
5. What others can learn
Transferable patterns
If it is hard to update it will be ignored
Tools inside existing workflows reduce friction
APIs beat spreadsheets
It does not need to feel like compliance
6. Source
Where this use case comes from
Anna Zaremba
she/her
Product Design Architect at eBay
Cordelia McGee-Tubb
she/her
Design technologist and digital accessibility specialist at eBay
Ryan Tinsley
he/him
Multidisciplinary Staff Designer at eBay
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