## Designing Your Stripe App

Stripe Apps empower you to build custom applications on top of Stripe's platform, extending its functionality and integrating with your existing workflows. To create a seamless and intuitive user experience within the Stripe Dashboard, it's crucial to follow established design principles and leverage the provided tools.

### Key Design Considerations:

*   **User Interface (UI) Extensions:** If your app includes a user interface, you'll be building a UI extension. Stripe provides a comprehensive UI component library and design patterns to simplify this process.
*   **Brand Expression and Custom Styling:** While Stripe Apps aim for platform consistency, you can still imbue your app with a distinct visual identity. Custom styling is intentionally limited to maintain platform coherence and ensure high accessibility standards. This includes restrictions on arbitrary font choices and colors to guarantee sufficient contrast.
*   **Design Tools and Guidelines:** Stripe offers a suite of design tools, guidelines, and a guiding philosophy to help you create effective and user-friendly applications.

### Leveraging Stripe's Design Resources:

*   **UI Components:** Stripe provides a rich library of pre-built UI components that align with Stripe's design system. These components can be used to structure layouts and create graphical or interactive interfaces within your app. Refer to the [UI components documentation](/stripe-apps/components) for a comprehensive list and their usage.
*   **Design Patterns:** To expedite the app review process and ensure a consistent user experience, Stripe recommends following established design patterns. These patterns cover various aspects of app design, from onboarding and navigation to handling states and displaying data. Explore the [Design patterns for Stripe Apps](/stripe-apps/patterns) for detailed guidance.

By adhering to these design principles and utilizing Stripe's provided resources, you can build robust, user-friendly, and visually consistent applications that seamlessly integrate with the Stripe Dashboard.