UIEtips: Atomic Design

It’s quite common for designers to develop design systems and libraries of patterns. A designer can save a considerable amount of time if they develop a reliable design system. One that goes beyond colors, fonts, grid etc but rather focuses more on how the various elements and parts become a whole. In today’s UIEtips, we feature a post from Brad Frost where he explains a methodology for creating design systems. It’s called Atomic Design. It’s a term rising in popularity.

We’re fortunate that Brad is giving a daylong workshop at this year’s UXIM conference in Denver, April 7-9. He’ll show you how your design team can establish a practical foundation to make flexible, adaptive UIs. Learn more about Brad’s workshop, Using Atomic Design to Create Responsive Interfaces.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

The thought is that all matter (whether solid, liquid, gas, simple, complex, etc) is comprised of atoms. Those atomic units bond together to form molecules, which in turn combine into more complex organisms to ultimately create all matter in our universe.

Similarly, interfaces are made up of smaller components. This means we can break entire interfaces down into fundamental building blocks and work up from there. That’s the basic gist of atomic design.

Read the article Atomic Design.

Does your company build interfaces using atomic design patterns? Tell us about it below.