Not a Linear Process

Atomic design is a mental model, not a sequential workflow.

It would be foolish to design buttons in isolation, then molecules, then organisms, then hope everything coheres at the page level. That’s not how good systems get built.

Instead, treat atomic design as a framework for simultaneous traversal, moving between the abstract (individual atoms) and the concrete (full page layouts) continuously. The stages are lenses for viewing the same system at different magnifications, not steps in a production line.

Don’t interpret the five stages as “Step 1: atoms; Step 2: molecules; Step 3: organisms; Step 4: templates; Step 5: pages.” That misses the point entirely.

Related: 01-molecule—part-and-whole-traversal, 01-molecule—atomic-design-methodology