Since the inception of web development, there is an epic battle going on to balance originality and efficiency in the web pages made. Web designers and developers now have a handful of technological tools and creative methodologies to meet their requirements at best.
There are many flexible front-end frameworks like Bootstrap, a lot of creative websites to get inspired, or it is even easier now to copy the design elements to customize for your purpose, which all are easy and legitimate ways to create stunning websites.
On the other hand, if everyone tends to borrow styles of the same source, all websites may start to look incredibly alike. However, there is an ultimate solution which allows both innovation and speed in a unique manner to create distinctly engaging web elements, its ‘Atomic Design.’
Atomic Design by Brad Frost
Brad Frost, the creator of atomic design methodology, claims that “the methodology aims at creating fundamental web elements” he also adds that “atomic design can create systems which promote scalability and consistency alongside showing things in the final context.”
From the experience of designers and developers over time, as explained at Rochester web design Atomic Design, atomic design not only boosts efficiency without compromising on originality but also helps the designers to visualize what the final product will be like. Further, in this post, we will dig into the fundamentals of this innovative design concept and integrate atomic design to your web development workflow.
The primary concept of atomic design
Atomic design splits a web interface into 5 distinct levels. From smallest to the largest, these are an atom, molecule, organism, template, and page.
– Atom refers to the most fundamental element in the interface which cannot be further meaningfully broken down.
– The molecule consists of several atoms with some functionality.
– The organism is a combination of molecules, which form a distinct part of the web interface by incorporating header, footer, grid, etc.
– The template is a meaningful organization of organisms, which specifies how the content appears.
– The page is the formation of an into the final user interface, which contains real functional content.
Modular designing
On starting with a new project, you have to first begin coding by combining the reusable modules. However, it is now rare to start a project from scratch without any existing elements. Most of the times, the need in hand may be upgrading the current site or redesigning an interface.
Whatever the need is, if content already exists, you should first run an audit to prepare the content inventory. Instead of documenting the images, text, and other tangible components, you have to document things which make up the UI, from icons to image types and rich media.
With the above knowledge, identify the atoms, molecules, organisms, and templates in your design. By assessing the needs of your planned user interface, ensure that the inventory is made perfect with all essential atoms and then devise the molecules, organisms, templates, and page features.
This project should incorporate the developers, designers, copywriters, project managers, along with business decision makers and digital marketers to assess the business needs and priorities. Further, the development process needed to be planned accordingly and should be accomplished step by step in the desired manner.