User Interfaces (UI) makes the digital world go ‘round. Without it, none of your favorite websites or apps would be up and running today. UI refers to the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. It involves the design and arrangement of interactive elements like buttons, icons, text fields, and images that users engage with while using a software application, website, or device. The primary goal of UI is to facilitate effective interaction, ensuring that users can accomplish their tasks with ease and efficiency. A key aspect of a user interface (UI) is UI components, which are the elements or building blocks that make apps or websites functional and user-friendly. Some examples of these components include buttons, inputs, forms, and menus. Without these components, your website or application would not be usable, and all that precious time spent working on your project would’ve been for naught.

But there is hope that you can ensure the success of your UI. Knowing that these components are crucial to the success of your website or application, you want to equip yourself with tools that help ensure that your UI runs smoothly. In enters, UI component development tools and UI library tools.

UI component development and UI library tools can help prevent some of the hiccups that often occur at release. Having a product that functions from the beginning is essential to gaining trust from your customers and ultimately, brand loyalty. As you update your website or app, these tools will help you continue to maintain a quality customer experience.

Three Key Benefits of UI Component Library and Development Tools

1. Consistency

Using the premade components in a UI component library can help ensure that all parts of your product are consistent. All of your team members working from the same library help to create a well-defined design language. This will allow you to maintain a strong sense of continuity within your work and enhance the overall user experience of your product. UI component libraries also offer you invaluable peace of mind. The components in a UI component library are heavily tested and optimized so you can be sure that they will be effective. 

Perfect for mobile app developers and web design firms alike, UI development tools have a variety of functionalities that can improve the consistency of your product. UI development tools that test and prototype your UI can catch issues with your product before it goes to market. This ensures the quality and integrity of your work. Consistent quality products will increase your customer satisfaction and customer lifetime value.

2. Efficiency

The UI component library has all of those premade elements ready to go. All that's left for you to do is put it all together. All the time you can cut out creating new components with every project adds up in the long run. With that extra time, your team can focus on the details and come up with new and exciting ideas. Time saved is money saved and reducing costs from repetitive tasks can make a big difference. Automated UI development tools, like automated testing, reduce costs as well by cutting down on the need for certain manual tasks. 

UI development tools also offer ease of integration as a means of increasing efficiency. Products like Storybook allow for ease of integration with other tools allowing you to continue using products you are comfortable with. Not only that, but the component library and UI development tools can make collaboration easier. Your team will have a shared design language and set of components to work from keeping them on the same page and preventing common communication roadblocks. 

3. Scalability

UI component libraries are designed with scalability in mind. The modular structure of the component library makes it easy to adapt to a variety of situations. New elements can easily be added without throwing off your project. This flexibility allows for your project to easily scale and grow with minimal tweaks and changes. Development tools possess this same adaptability. The automation features of UI development tools can help ensure that your new code can be integrated successfully and with little fuss allowing you to scale with ease. 

Popular UI Component Development Tools

Storybook

‍

Storybook is an industry leader in UI component development tools. Used by thousands of teams all over the world, Storybook is a workshop for UI development. It can be used for testing, UI component development, documentation, integration with existing tools, and more. In Storybook, developers can browse a component library, view different states, and interactively develop components in isolation. These features save you from developing components from scratch, running a sample app, or negatively impacting your existing work with your additions.

More Features and Benefits:

Flexible - Storybook is a versatile tool that supports multiple frameworks including React, Vue, and Angular. Its ease of integration makes adoption easier and is great for teams with projects across varying technology stacks.

Sandbox - Storybook provides a sandbox environment that is perfect for rapid iteration and testing. This ensures the product that you release is your best work and protects your existing code.

Add-on Ecosystem - Add-ons are a great way to customize your development experience. Storybook add-ons are easy to set up and use for enhanced functionality like accessibility testing, design documentation, and component analytics. These add-ons provide you with real-time feedback and actionable insights for you and your team.

PatternLab

‍

PatternLab is a sandbox environment and a node powered static site generator that allows you to build and test your UI components. PatternLab uses atomic design philosophy, a design methodology that categorizes UI aspects using concepts from chemistry like atoms, molecules, etc. Each reusable component builds upon the other. Atoms are design basics like buttons and inputs while molecules are basic combinations of UI elements like a search form and so on. 

More Features and Benefits:

Open-source - PatternLab is a community-driven open source software. A strong community with a variety of learning resources makes it easier for you to adapt to PatternLab and add it to your team. 

Visual Regression Testing - A key trait of a quality UI development tool, PatternLab supports visual regression testing allowing you to check the accuracy of your visual design after you make code changes. This helps you catch and remedy any major bugs quickly ensuring UI consistency.

Integration - Like Storybook, PatternLab integrates well with various tools, plug-ins, frameworks, and templating engines. PatternLab doesn’t force you to use any specific tools or UI libraries allowing you complete control of how you want to develop your project. 

Popular UI Component Libraries

Material UI (React)

‍

For projects that utilize Google’s Material Design principles, Material UI is one of the most popular UI component libraries for React, a JavaScript library. Material UI allows you to use customizable components to quickly build exciting projects. This library offers extensive documentation and is built with accessibility in mind. 

More Features and Benefits:

Comprehensive Component Set: Material UI offers 40+ tried and true components to give you a jumpstart on building. No more wasted time building every button and table you need. 

Theming: One of the most defining features of Material UI is its extensive theming capabilities. Material UI allows you to easily implement your brand design. This library uses your brand design tokens to customize your project to your needs. Material UI even integrates with Figma to help you further achieve a seamless design. 

Open-source: Material UI is an open-source library with a vibrant community of contributors. This community grants you access to a myriad of resources, examples, and learning materials that you can use to build your product.

Semantic UI (HTML/CSS/JS)

‍

Semantic UI is a popular UI component library that is clean and easy to use. Semantic UI utilizes simple HTML and offers over 50 ready-made components. It emphasizes simplicity and readability, making it easy to use and integrate. Semantic UI focuses on being concise and readable making it user-friendly and great for integration.

More Features and Benefits:

Semantic HTML: Semantic UI uses natural language principles, meaning it utilizes human language rather than an artificial one for code. This makes code more readable and easier to maintain.

Theming: Like Material UI, Semantic UI has fantastic theming capabilities. Semantic UI offers over 3,000 theming variables to customize your design. 

Open-source: Semantic UI is an open-source library with a large community and extensive documentation. With its user-friendly nature and variety of resources, creating your design in made simple.

What’s the Takeaway

UI component libraries and development tools help you build exciting an dynamic projects with consistency, efficiency, and ease. These traits will streamline your project, facilitate collaboration, and increase the satisfaction of your team by reducing menial tasks.Using these tools to test and develop your products can save you a lot of headache and prevent you from launching a faulty product. Launching a quality product will lead you to loyal customers and a greater chance of success. 

Not sure where to begin? At Camber Creative our experienced team of website, app, and SaaS developers can help you get on the right track. We can help you choose the right tools for your project and help you maintain it. Or if you’re looking to give over the reins, we can even develop your new product on your behalf and bring your vision to life.