These three elements form the core that drives our business. Customers rely on numerical data to gauge how well their systems are performing while dates and time provide much needed context for that information.
Basics
Write numbers as numerals regardless of where they appear in a sentence
Use commas for numbers with 4 or more digits.
If absolute numerical accuracy is less important than giving customers a sense of the number, it’s OK to round them to something like 1k (for 1,012) or 324.5 million (for 324,501,082). Use your best judgment with this one.
Never write whole numbers with a decimal place and trailing zero.
Do
Don't
1,024 KB
1024 KB
Top 5 transaction traces
Top five transaction traces
2 seconds
2.0 seconds
Large numbers
We use common American English for our UI, which creates some challenges with large numbers. International and American English conventions for thousand are the same: a lowercase k. But million, billion, and trillion are trickier because abbreviations differ across regions and industries. For this reason, we abbreviate only thousand, our most common count.
Abbreviate thousand with a lowercase k with a space between the the last number and the letter: 50 k.
When dealing with larger numbers, use a space and then spell out million, billion, trillion, etc, in lowercase. If space is too tight and you have to abbreviate, use B, M, T, but only if you provide the full spelling elsewhere on the screen or chart and the full number on hover.
If possible, provide the full number on hover.
In the UI
On hover (wherever possible)
Don't
50.2 k
50,200
50.2k
50.2 million
50,200,000
50.2m, 50.2M
50.2 billion
50,200,000,000
50.2G, 50.2B
50.2 trillion
50,200,000,000,000
50.2T, 50.2 t
Date and time
We use automatic date and time formatting per browser from the standard formatter. If you're coding these values in the product, see our internal design system. To pull in the correct formatting, use the usedate and usetime hooks.
Note: the only deviation we make from the standard formatter is with the 24-hour clock option (accurate and long). For 12:30 AM, we use 00:30 instead of 24:30.
useDate options
Sample output
Basic (default)
February 24, 2022
short
Feb 24, 2022
useTime options
Sample output
Basic
12:16 AM
Day
February 24 at 12:16 AM
short day
Feb 24, 12:16 AM
Accurate
00:16:36.969
Long
00:16:36
(Coming soon)
February 24, 2022 at 12:16 AM
(Coming soon)
Feb 24, 2022, 12:16 AM
Abbreviating units of time
Spell out all units wherever possible.
If space is too limited, use the following standard abbreviations:
Unit
Preferred
Abbreviation (when necessary)
Millisecond
4 milliseconds
4 ms
Seconds
5 seconds
5 s
Minutes
6 minutes
6 min
Hours
7 hours
7 h
Days
8 days
8 d
Weeks
9 weeks
9 wk
Months
10 months
10 mo
Years
11 years
11 yr
Decimals and fractions
Write fractional values in decimal form.
Round fractional numbers 2 decimal places to the right.
Include a leading 0 in decimal numbers less than 1.
Do
Don't
0.92 ms
.92 ms
16.23 s
16.2822 s
Money
Omit the trailing decimal and 0s for whole dollar amounts.
Place the appropriate currency symbol before the dollar amount with no spaces.
When including currency with a price, the currency comes at the end with a space between it and the dollar amount.
Do
Don't
$32
$32.00
$32.75
---
$14.99 USD
USD $14.99
Percentages
Use the % symbol with no space between the number and symbol.
For fractional values in decimal form, always include a leading zero.
EXCEPTION - When pinpoint accuracy is necessary, as with Synthetics data, you can use use up to three decimal places in percentages.