Is someone actually doing this? A peer wanted to. He was pretty much just doing some atoms and was enthusiastic about it. But that project fell apart because he had no real idea how to put everything together. I feel this concept is more like a well told story then something productive useful.
We use most of the principles of atomic design, but not the terminology. Atoms and molecules and whatnot are a cute analogy but make the concepts harder to explain, not simpler.<p>It’s pretty simple: Design the smallest bits - headings, paragraphs, buttons etc, and combine them into progressively larger components. Use only those components, adding new ones if absolutely necessary.<p>At work we’re in the process of moving a 20+ year old website with many thousands of pages to a completely component-based system. We’ve gone from about 70 templates to three, massively simplified the stylesheet and increased development speed as new pages are built from ready-made and tested components rather than buildings every page from scratch.<p>By doing this it means that UX, design and code can be kept consistent through design, development and maintenance.
Atomic design principles are super fit for React component libraries. I don't take the atoms > molecules > organisms pattern quite literally though, as functionally, it makes more sense to group atoms and molecules (composed of atoms) into a single dictionary of components, like a toolkit. I simply `import { hammer, nails, thumb } from tools`...<p>And then, my organisms are usually groups of organs, that are specific implementations or modules within the app. Anytime I build an abstraction of an organ to be used in multiple organisms, it can probably be added to my toolkit.<p>Also, I use CSS-Modules and avoid Redux wherever possible, because I build my applications such that state, style, and function are all local & self-contained... avoiding global variables as much as I can.
In my experience, Atomic Design's interesting principle is that of separating Atoms and Molecules. Between Molecules and Organisms it gets fuzzy and arbitrary, and Pages/Page Templates are not a new concept. It's a cool-sounding design language tool and Atoms are really useful, but that's the only positive innovation I've experienced from using it at a previous workplace.
Not necessarily immediately relevant, but Brad is going through some tough family times at the moment.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/brad_frost/status/1039491001130405889" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/brad_frost/status/1039491001130405889</a><p>Perhaps pick up the book to support him (it's excellent), or maybe send a stranger a positive Tweet or email or whatever.