Jeff Crossman, Product Designer at GEDesign:
A design system should not simply be a collection of user interface components along with some design theory. It should demonstrate how design patterns have been applied in real products and document how other teams have extended patterns for specific use cases. Our goal with this design system is to enable product teams to focus their efforts on the solving for new customer needs, and enable them to share those solutions with the rest of the company.
Their system is a tad different from, yet relates to, Brad Frost’s Atomic Design:
The hierarchy used, when compared to Atomic Design, in GE’s system is inverted:
Presenting Atomic Design in this way works well when trying to educate someone on how the levels of the hierarchy build upon themselves, however we have found that it may not be the best way to actually engage with the design system.