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What Is MUI and What Do You Need to Know About It?

MUI 5

One of the questions organizations ask themselves at the start of a new project is, “do we adopt a component library or start from scratch?” There are pros and cons to weigh, and it depends on the project’s scope and priorities. 

One of the most popular component libraries is MUI – a comprehensive React UI library modelled at first on Google’s Material Design UI. 

We’re going to take a look at MUI, why you’d want to use it, what makes it different from other component libraries, and how you can get started designing your next project.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to design in code? UXPin Merge is a revolutionary technology that allows teams to create fully functioning layouts without design skills. Find out more about Merge.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

What is MUI?

MUI is a massive library of UI components designers and developers can use to build React applications. The open-source project follows Google’s guidelines for creating components, giving you a customizable library of foundational and advanced UI elements.

MUI also sells a collection of React templates and tools, giving you ready-made user interfaces to tweak for your project. 

Why Would You Use a Component Library Like MUI?

Designers often use UI kits to build new products or feature add-ons for existing projects. These libraries allow designers to drag and drop the components they need to design interfaces quickly. 

Let’s explore 7 reasons why you would want to use the MUI component library.

1. Faster Time-to-Market

In today’s highly competitive tech landscape, time-to-market is a metric that organizations always seek to optimize. A component library gives designers and developers a massive headstart with thoroughly tested UI elements ready to go.

Designers can drag and drop elements to build user interfaces and customize components to meet product and branding requirements. Design teams can spend more time designing great customer experiences rather than getting bogged down building and testing UI components from scratch–a process that increases time-to-market significantly!

Usability testing is much faster because designers can prototype, test, and iterate quickly. If a user interface isn’t working during testing, they can make changes on the fly, drawing from a massive library, to get instant feedback from participants and stakeholders.

When it comes to the design handoff, engineers can install the component library and copy/paste changes from prototypes and style guides to develop the product without starting from scratch.

2. A Single Source of Truth

One of the biggest design system governance challenges is maintaining a single source of truth. It’s not uncommon for product teams, UX designers, and developers to have out-of-sync design systems–resulting in errors, rework, and massive headaches and challenges for DesignOps.

Using MUI’s component library can significantly reduce these challenges while creating a single source of truth between design and development. Designers and engineers will still have separate design systems (image-based for designers and code for engineers), but MUI gives them the same starting blocks.

When using Merge with UXPin’s code-based editor, designers and engineers use the same design system components synced via a single repository. Any updates to the repo sync back to UXPin, notifying designers of the changes. You can connect Merge using Git for React component libraries or Storybook for other popular technologies.

3. Design Consistency

Consistency is vital for user experience, building trust, and brand loyalty. Using the same UI components allows designers to increase consistency while minimizing errors and rework.

4. Scalability

Scalability is another vital product design factor. If you’re building a design system from scratch, designers must design, prototype, and test new components before scaling the product.

With MUI’s comprehensive UI library, designers can search for the components they need to prototype and scale right away. Engineers can copy/paste the identical React components from MUI and customize them to the designer’s specifications.

MUI X includes a library of advanced React components teams can use to scale complex products even faster, including data grids, date pickers, charts, pagination, filtering, and more.

5. Easy Maintenance

A component library like MUI comes with detailed documentation for installing, using, updating, and customizing components. Designers and engineers can use this framework to maintain the organization’s design system, making it easier to establish governance systems and protocols.

MUI also provides how-to guides for migrating from one version to the next. So, organizations can take advantage of the latest UI styles, technologies, and trends whenever MUI releases an update.

6. Accessibility

Those experienced with setting up a design system will know the time and money it takes to ensure every component passes accessibility standards. MUI’s designers have taken great care in designing components to meet WCAD 2.0 accessibility guidelines – reducing the work for researchers and designers.

It’s important to note that even when you design interfaces using accessible components, you must still test navigation and user flows to ensure the product as a whole meets accessibility standards.

7. Skills Empowerment

MUI’s open-source component UI library empowers startups and young entrepreneurs to build new products–especially in developing nations where they don’t have the same access to education, mentoring, and skills transfer.

The library is also incredibly beneficial for charities, non-profits, NGOs, and similar organizations who want to develop products and tools but don’t have the budget to invest in a design system. 

Anyone can leverage the skills of MUI’s talented designers and developers using the same component library used by Fortune 500 companies to develop sophisticated digital products and compete in a global market.

What Makes MUI Stand Apart From Other Component Libraries?

Google’s Material Design UI is arguably one of the best and most comprehensive design libraries in the world. By building on top of Material Design, MUI delivers a React component library to match.

The ability to easily customize MUI using its Theming feature and the libraries’ excellent documentation make it accessible to build products for multinational corporations or a single developer with a product idea.

Because MUI is so widely used, there is a massive global community of designers, researchers, and developers to reach out to for guidance and support. Added to the fact that React is one of the most popular front-end frameworks, makes MUI an attractive component library.

MUI – Interesting Facts and Figures

Here are some interesting MUI facts and figures:

Note: MUI’s stats continue to climb. These facts were accurate as of Jan 2022.

  • MUI started in 2014 as Material UI but decided to change its name to differentiate itself from Google. Many people assumed Material UI was a Google product.
  • MUI has over 2,200 open-source contributors.
  • There are over 2,3 million NPM downloads of MUI per week.
  • Over 73,700 stars on GitHub.
  • Of the 1,488 respondents to MUI’s 2020 survey, 35% of developers worked in an organization with less than five people.
  • In the survey, 27% of developers use MUI for enterprise applications, while 20% use the library for admin dashboards.

UXPin’s MUI 5 Kit

Using UXPin Merge’s MUI integration, you can leverage the power of prototyping with UI React components.

MUI helps you create designs with fully functioning code components. With a single source of truth, designers, developers, product teams, and others can collaborate more effectively with fewer errors and friction.

Higher fidelity means better usability testing with meaningful feedback from participants and stakeholders. The result? A better overall user experience and increased business value.

Find out more about UXPin’s MUI kit and how you can sign up to request access to this revolutionary code-based design technology: MUI library in UXPin: Design Faster.

Syncing a Component Library With UXPin Merge

With UXPin Merge, you can build fully functioning high-fidelity prototypes with an open-source component library. With complex UI components like menus, forms, tabs, data tables, date pickers, accordions, and more, you can build beautiful and functional layouts in minutes. Check out Merge.

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User Retention – 7 Design Tips to Improve it

Design Tips to Improve Your Apps User Retention

Today’s digital product users have simply decided that they don’t have the attention span–or the time–to wade through poorly designed apps. Luckily, since designers study users and their behavior, they can help with improving user retention through the right design practices. 

In this article, we propose a solution to the customer retention issues that plague user interfaces. The goal is to engage app visitors so that they feel compelled to return. Done properly, casual users stay engaged. Loyalty prospers, followers are born, and an app becomes a daily staple. 

Key takeaways:

  • User retention is a behavioral pattern of users who keep coming back to the site, app or other digital product.
  • It’s measured as a percentage that reflects total number of users at the start of a period divided by number of active users at the end of the period.
  • What helps you make design decisions for improving user retention is behavioral science but also usability, customer service, and more.

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What is User Retention?

User retention is when a casual digital browser is transformed into a power user who returns to consume more of what your app or website offers. These users follow this pattern of product or service consumption, staying for longer periods to benefit from the app or website. 

More accurately, teams track this metric as a percentage. By tracking this rate, you can help your team focus on improving user retention. You see trends in motion, which lets you quickly spot and address any downturns in user engagement. Following a user retention strategy lets your team meet their objectives and keep the return user statistics in your favour.

How Can Designers Measure User Retention? 

By using something as simple as a user survey or more complex analytics tools, developers determine repeat visits. They can also generate ballpark figures by selecting a timeframe and dividing the total number of users recorded at the start by the number of active users at the end of that period.

Here’s a general formula for tracking user retention:

Total number of users at the start of a period / number of active users at the end of the period = user retention rate (%)

With the figure in hand, product teams can discover what resonates with app traffic. Say that there’s a sudden drop in user returns. After speaking to a few users, your team learns that a UI element doesn’t work or is confusing and causes user frustration. The design team can then work on a fix that would remove the blocker in the user journey. 

Product teams also commonly review churn rates – more on this later – and other analytics, but it’s the user retention figure that provides the greatest understanding of in-app behavior.

All of this analysis and user querying result in a more personalized experience. In the end, the app doesn’t overwhelm or confuse with information overload or navigation-slowing pages.

How to tell if user retention is low?

Let’s introduce a predictability baseline. Fact: the average customer retention rate after 30 days of app usage is typically 5.6% of users. Designers might use this statistic as a very rough benchmark when rolling out their creations.

That said, when setting their user retention objectives, they should always prioritize their industry-standard rates. You can establish what a ‘good’, ‘average’, or ‘poor’ retention rate means to you after considering several factors, like what your product does, who is the target user, and how much it costs. 

So much for theory – now let’s look at some factors that can help keep users coming back.

7 Design Tips on Improving User Retention

Before thinking about your app’s improving retention rate, it’s essential to understand the basics of behavioral science. The Hooked Model, created by Nir Niyal, will be used to illustrate this concept:

  • The trigger – humans gravitate towards familiar screen anchors. Links, clickable icons or images, emails; these are all habit-forming triggers. They prompt users to take familiar actions. They’ve been “hooked” by a trigger. An emotional component is activated when triggers work as they’re designed to.
  • Action – this is a key part of the action/reward cycle that drives human interactions. If the action is to be viewed as “good,” a rewarding response is expected.
  • Variable rewards – we become excited when unforeseen incentives are on the line. Your customers can’t help themselves; they want to click through to another part of your app when they’re tempted by a hidden image or, say, the promise of a discount code.
  • User investment – interest rises. Your users want to interact with your app, to leave feedback or fill out a form. This final part of the four-phase hooked model equals customer investment and a healthy future for burgeoning users.

Although human behavior lies at the core of UX design practices, the ‘human factor’ can be unpredictable at times, and belongs in another realm altogether. It is crucial that this emotional element is understood.

Understand who your loyal customers are

Retained users are potential brand advocates. They’re already satisfied with your app and have the power to draw in more customers. Consider the following:

  • Track churn rate, which is defined as the percentage of users who have stopped using the app over a predetermined amount of time. If user investment is dropping, you need to find out why.
  • Know your ideal customer profile but match expectations against real-world results. Using analytics tools and app retention figures, how often do visitors use your app? 
  • What’s the habit-forming trigger in your app?
  • Can those triggers be recreated on command?

To learn more about the psychology behind habit forming in design, give our dedicated piece a read.

Once you’ve determined the level of user retention you need for your app or website, you can then focus on refining your user experience (UX). 

Reward those users who use your product regularly

These incentives aren’t always monetary. In fact, they could be anything, including:

  • Points (e.g., used to reward returning users of the ‘Health’ app in Apple devices)
  • Badges (e.g., Facebook groups, where the most active members of the community are given special badges for top contributors)
  • Discounts (e.g., eCommerce stores that often display discount codes in their app, site, social accounts, or deliver them to customers via email)
  • VIP status (e.g., language learning app Duolingo puts a heavy emphasis not only on gamifying the studying experience, but also offers VIP status to those who return to the app daily)
  • Free upgrades (e.g., hotels offering free room upgrades for booking directly through their site or app)
  • Compliments (e.g. a free ebook for the first 50 users who log into the app on a given day).

Rewards inspire feelings of achievement. You feel like you’ve accomplished something, so you return for more. Customer retention rates increase as users react positively to this sense of accomplishment.

The Stepler app represents a fine example of the reward principle. Points are won every time a user walks, and earn bonus points every time they log into the app. Always on the mind of the fitness enthusiast, because they’re hooked up to a wearable fitness device, the app is accessed regularly.

In this case, the rewards program aligns with the user’s activity goals to build closer ties to advertisers and brands.   

Improve usability

Usability is a term that describes the degree to which an individual can use an app, website, or other product to achieve a specific end goal – conveniently and enjoyably. If you spot that a user struggles with completing a process due to a usability glitch, then you need to decide how you can resolve the issue.

To get started, you need to understand if the design meets your users’ needs. If it doesn’t, what’s lacking? A good way to gather answers is by gathering feedback from customers.

Make sure your onboarding is good

Just like when reading a book or meeting someone for the first time, first impressions are everything.

Make sure your onboarding process is smooth and streamlined. First-time visitors to your app should experience smooth sailing through the tasks. 

Unfortunately, customers tend to remember problems, whether they’re due to site navigation or some app slowdown incident. Avoid such bad memories by conducting exhaustive dummy-run app tests to iron out the wrinkles. Pair the above steps with a well-designed in-app onboarding flow.

Put a customer feedback loop in place

Feedback is offered to customers as a means of gathering insights and actionable suggestions. To ensure you retain your hard-won customer base, you need a process for obtaining customer feedback. 

Not to be skipped when consolidating customer insights, feedback loops play a crucial role in collecting and analyzing user reviews and surveys.

There are several methods to gather customer feedback:

  • Run a survey like Net Promoter Score®
  • Request that users participate in focus groups and provide feedback sessions.
  • Combining all of the above results, the data is analyzed for discernible trends in user behavior.

Use the right trigger

There are a number of tools available for the discerning app designer. From a design point of view, the initial trigger must be functional and aesthetically attractive. Function, of course, is more important than app attractiveness. Both work together to draw in users, though.

A dynamic design is yet another piece of the puzzle that is the human experience. By incorporating interactive elements and visually appealing graphics, users are more likely to engage with the app. Animations and scaling graphics, lines, and color changes – these dynamic elements all serve to engage the eye. Audio cues work just as well as an attention-grabbing device.

Share new feature updates with relevant users 

You can use the same design techniques to separate new features and updates from the presence of regular app content. A different font color or a flashing banner directing the attention of a user’s eye causes the static of the familiar to fade while fresh new features stand out.

Kommunicate announces a new feature through a convenient tooltip: It’s a great way to share information without overwhelming the screen with attention-stealing detail.    

Conclusion

Tracking user retention is a great way to verify if your app meets user needs. As soon as you notice it going down, you should start to investigate the reasons behind it. You can do it by running a survey or speaking directly to your target audience. 

By using a tool like UXPin you can quickly test new features before you proceed into full launch. This way you will ensure a seamless user experience by keeping your designs easy to navigate around, and clutter-free. Try UXPin today.

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Inventory App Design – A Comprehensive Guide

inventory app design

Efficient inventory management is essential for the success of any eCommerce organization. Manually tracking and recording inventory using pen and paper can be time-consuming and prone to errors. To overcome these challenges, many businesses are turning to inventory management apps to save time and improve accuracy.

We will explore the key elements of designing an effective inventory app that provides a seamless user experience and enhances productivity.

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Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

Why Inventory App Design is Important?

Effective inventory management is crucial for small businesses and large organizations. It ensures that the right products are available at the right time, avoids stockouts, reduces carrying costs, and optimizes overall operational efficiency.

An inventory management app can significantly enhance these benefits by providing real-time visibility into inventory levels, creating efficient automations, and enabling data-driven decision-making.

UX Design in Inventory Apps

When designing an inventory app, user experience (UX) should be at the forefront of your mind. A well-designed app should be intuitive, easy to navigate, and provide a seamless workflow for users. Good UX design enhances user satisfaction and minimizes errors.

UI Design in Inventory Apps

User interface (UI) design focuses on the visual and interactive elements of an app. It encompasses the layout, typography, colors, icons, and overall aesthetics. A visually appealing and user-friendly UI design creates a positive impression, improves usability, and engages users.

Do You Need to Design Your Own Inventory App?

responsive screens

Nowadays, a lot of organizations pick a ready-made inventory management software, either provided by a SaaS business or optimizing an open-sourced ones. Those out-of-the-box solutions are enough if you sell regular inventory, but if you sell custom products, you might want to build your own web app or mobile app.

Then, you can personalize an inventory dashboard to your needs and get other benefits like:

  • Competitive Advantage: A custom app inventory system can give you a competitive edge. It can be designed to include unique features and functionalities that set you apart from your competitors.
  • Scalability: As your business grows, your inventory management needs will evolve. A bespoke system can be built with scalability in mind, ensuring it can adapt to your future needs without major disruptions or the need to switch to a new system.
  • Enhanced Security: Security is paramount when managing your inventory and customer data. With a custom solution, you have greater control over security features and can implement robust measures to protect sensitive information.
  • Efficiency and Automation: Your custom app can be tailored to automate routine tasks, improving efficiency and reducing human error. This can save you time and resources, allowing your team to focus on more strategic activities.

How to Design an App Inventory Management System

collaboration team prototyping

The development of an inventory app starts with gathering requirements, conducting research, creating wireframes, mockups, and prototypes, as well as collaborating with developers to bring the app to life. It’s vital to ensure that the app meets the functional and aesthetic requirements while delivering a seamless user experience.

Step 1: Analyze Requirements

The process starts with a thorough discussion of business needs, objectives, and the specific challenges you are facing with your current inventory management system (if any). You need to understand your workflows, user roles, and any unique features you require to be able to design the perfect dashboard.

This step also involves studying existing inventory management apps in the market to identify design patterns, usability issues, and areas for improvement. Analyzing competitor apps will help you understand industry standards, identify gaps in the market, and gain inspiration for innovative features.

Some of the features that you definitely want in an inventory management system are:

  • Real-Time Inventory Tracking: A core feature of any inventory app is real-time inventory tracking. Users should be able to view accurate stock levels, track item movements, and receive notifications for low stock or out-of-stock items. Real-time data ensures that users have up-to-date information for efficient decision-making.
  • Barcode Scanning and QR Code Integration: To streamline the inventory management process, integrate barcode scanning and QR code capabilities into your app. This feature allows users to quickly scan product codes, update inventory records, and reduce manual data entry errors.
  • Order and Reorder Management: To enable users to manage orders and reorder inventory seamlessly within the app. This feature should include functionalities such as creating purchase orders, tracking order status, managing supplier information, and automating reorder notifications based on predefined thresholds.
  • Reporting and Analytics: Provide users with comprehensive reporting and analytics capabilities to gain insights into inventory performance, sales trends, and forecasting. Customizable reports, visualizations, and data export options will empower users to make informed decisions and optimize inventory management strategies.
  • User Permissions and Access Control: Implement robust user permissions and access control features to ensure data security and privacy. Different user roles should have varying levels of access and functionality within the app. This feature allows for efficient collaboration while maintaining data integrity.

Step 2: Get to Design and Prototyping

Once we have a clear understanding of your requirements, the team will create wireframes and prototypes of the inventory management app. This stage allows you to see how the system will work and make any necessary adjustments.

Here are some essential considerations for creating an intuitive and visually appealing user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).

  • Information Architecture and Navigation: Develop a logical and intuitive information architecture that organizes the app’s content and user flow. Use clear and consistent navigation patterns, such as a menu bar or sidebar, to help users easily navigate between different sections of the app.
  • Visual Design and Branding: Create a visually appealing design that aligns with the branding and aesthetics of the business. Use a consistent color palette, typography, and iconography throughout the app to create a cohesive and professional look.
  • Responsive Design for Multiple Devices: Ensure that the app is responsive and optimized for various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Responsive design allows users to access and manage inventory on the go, improving flexibility and productivity.
  • Streamlined Workflow and Task Efficiency: Design the app’s workflow in a way that minimizes unnecessary steps, reduces cognitive load, and maximizes task efficiency. Use clear and concise labels, tooltips, and error messages to guide users through each task and prevent errors.
  • Gestures and Interactions: Consider incorporating intuitive gestures and interactions, such as swiping, pinching, and long-pressing, to enhance the user experience. These interactions should feel natural and provide users with a sense of control.
  • Prototyping and Usability Testing: Once the initial design is ready, it’s crucial to prototype the app and conduct usability testing to validate the design decisions. Prototyping allows users to interact with the app’s interface and provide feedback, while usability testing helps identify any usability issues.

Step 3: Develop the Inventory App

With a validated design, it’s time to move into the development phase and bring the inventory app to life. Collaborate with developers to ensure a smooth implementation process.

Work closely with the development team to integrate the app with the necessary backend systems and databases. This integration will enable real-time data synchronization, data storage, and retrieval.

Step 4: Test the App

Thoroughly test the app in different scenarios and environments to identify and fix any bugs or issues. Conduct comprehensive quality assurance to ensure the app meets the desired performance, security, and compatibility standards.

At this stage, prepare for the app’s deployment by creating documentation, conducting training sessions, and providing ongoing support. User training is essential to ensure that users understand how to effectively use the app’s features and maximize its benefits.

Step 5: Release

The design process does not end with the app’s launch. Monitor user feedback, gather analytics data, and continuously strive to improve the app’s performance and user experience. Regularly release updates and new features based on user needs and market trends.

Once you get confident that your app works great, consider integrating additional functionalities such as predictive analytics, demand forecasting, and integration with third-party tools to further enhance the app’s capabilities.

Streamline app inventory design with UXPin Merge

Now that you have a comprehensive understanding of the key elements of designing an effective inventory app, it’s time to put your knowledge into action.

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UXPin Wireframe 101 – A Short Guide for Product Teams

uxpin wireframe

Creating wireframes is a critical step in the UX design process, serving as the blueprint for the final product. This guide offers an in-depth look at how to build effective wireframes using UXPin, an end-to-end design tool that stands out for its code-based technology and built-in features. 

The article provides a detailed, step-by-step approach, from assembling basic UI elements to incorporating user feedback. Learn how UXPin’s unique features, like interactive form elements and code-to-design capabilities, can streamline your design process, improve collaboration, and contribute to a more intuitive user experience.

Key takeaways:

  • UXPin offers code-based wireframing capabilities that enable designers to create fully interactive and functional wireframes.
  • UXPin stands apart from other design tools by offering built-in features like design libraries and advanced prototyping capabilities.
  • UXPin facilitates a seamless transition from wireframing to high-fidelity prototyping, allowing for complex interactions and even API integrations, making it a comprehensive full-stack design solution.

Streamline your design process and build wireframes faster with UXPin. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s full-stack design solution.

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What is a UX Wireframe?

A UX wireframe is a low-fidelity visual blueprint representing a user interface’s underlying framework. Typically devoid of color, graphics, and intricate details, it primarily focuses on space allocation, content prioritization, and intended functionalities. 

Designers craft wireframes in the early stages of the design process to communicate the structure of a webpage, app, or system. Their primary purpose is to establish the basic layout and interaction patterns before diving into detailed mockups and hi-fi prototypes.

What are the Benefits of Wireframing?

mobile screens

Wireframing offers a range of benefits that streamline the design process and foster effective communication among team members. Here’s a rundown of its advantages:

  • Clarity: Wireframes remove ambiguity by visually representing the layout, providing a clear roadmap for everyone involved.
  • Efficiency: By resolving issues early, wireframes save time and resources in the later stages of development.
  • Alignment: Wireframes help align stakeholders and team members on the project’s goals and functionalities.
  • Usability: They provide an opportunity to assess the user experience, ensuring intuitive navigation and layout.
  • Collaboration: Wireframes serve as a tool for discussion, allowing designers, developers, and stakeholders to offer early design feedback.
  • Prioritization: They help identify the most crucial elements of a design, allowing for effective content hierarchy.
  • Flexibility: Wireframes make it easier to iterate and make changes, serving as a lo-fi model for experimentation.
  • Architecture: Wireframes provide the foundation for a digital product’s information architecture.

Is UXPin the Right Tool for Wireframing?

UXPin is an end-to-end design tool with excellent wireframing capabilities. Designers have several features to create interactive wireframes effortlessly:

  • Box: a flexible UI element that allows you to add text
  • Shapes: rectangle, oval, circle, rounded, line, arrow, polygon, and star
  • Text: basic text block
  • Forms: a set of foundational unstyled form elements, including a button, textarea, select/multi-select, checkbox, and radio button
  • Hotspot: make any element or a specific location on a UI interactive
  • Icons: choose from several icon sets, including Material Design, Fonts Awesome, Retina Icons, and more.

Unlike other design tools, UXPin’s UI elements are interactive by default. For example, all UXPin’s Form elements are fully functional. You can drag a checkbox or radio onto the canvas, and it already has clickable on/off interactivity.

These interactive elements allow design teams to gather more data and feedback during the wireframing process before moving to the design process’s more costly, high-fidelity phase.

What is the Difference Between UXPin and Other Wireframing Tools?

UXPin’s most significant differentiating factor is that the platform uses code-based technology. Rather than generating vector graphics like Sketch or Figma, UXPin renders HTML, CSS, and Javascript behind the scenes. 

This code-based approach gives design teams enhanced functionality to build fully interactive wireframes and prototypes. For example, in image-based tools, an input field is a graphical representation, whereas, in UXPin, it’s a functional input capable of capturing, storing, and sharing user data.

Built-in features vs. plugins

Another differentiator is that UXPin offers more features as standard than other wireframing tools, eliminating the need for plugins and extensions. UXPin plans come with Design Systems, built-in design libraries, Content and Data, Fonts (Google and custom), Accessibility Features, and much more–many of which would need plugins with other design tools.

Code-to-design

UXPin’s Merge technology allows design teams to import code components into the design process for prototyping. Designers can create fully functioning interactive prototypes using the same UI library devs use for the final product.

If your engineering team uses a specific wireframe component library, you can import this into UXPin using Merge. There are also several built-in Merge libraries, including Material UI, MUI, Ant Design, Fluent UI, and UXPin Boilerplate, which you can use to build interactive prototypes–allowing you to go from wireframing to high-fidelity prototyping to test concepts and ideas fast.

How to Build a Wireframe in UXPin

Here are ten steps for building a wireframe in UXPin, including gathering feedback and collaborating with stakeholders.

You will need a UXPin account to follow this step-by-step tutorial. Sign up for a free 14-day trial if you don’t have one.

Step 1: Open UXPin and create a new project

  • Open UXPin and click the blue + New project button.
  • Enter a project name and click Create New Project.
  • The next screen asks, “What do you want to start with today?” Click New prototype.

Step 2: Choose the wireframe’s canvas size

Choose your wireframe’s canvas size in the Properties Panel on the right. UXPin provides a wide selection of standard viewports, including TVs, desktops, tablets, mobile, and wearables, to name a few. Use Grids and Guides to help maintain horizontal and vertical consistency.

Step 3: Create pages for each screen

Unlike Figma or Sketch, which use artboards and frames, UXPin uses a separate page for each screen.

  • Select Pages & Layers at the bottom of the left sidebar,
  • Click the + icon at the top of the sidebar to create a new page. You can also use the OPTION+N keyboard shortcut.
  • Double-click on the page name to change it–we’ve created two pages: Login and Welcome.

Pro tip: Use the built-in User Flows library to design your user journeys and information architecture to determine the number of screens and navigational layouts for your project.

Step 4: Create wireframe UI elements

You can assemble wireframe patterns and layouts using UXPin’s Shapes, Forms, Boxes, etc. Auto-Layout lets you manage group elements effectively, including size, gap, alignment, distribution, and more. Use UXPin’s Components feature to create reusable wireframe elements for faster iterating and maximum consistency.

Step 5: Define interactions

We will add a basic navigation interaction from the Login to the Welcome screen for this demonstration.

  • Click on an element to select it and click Interactions in the Properties Panel.
  • Create a navigation interaction as follows:
    • Trigger: Click (Tap)
    • Action: Go to Page
    • Page: Select Welcome from the dropdown
    • Click Add to complete the interaction

Learn how to set up Interactions, including Triggers, Actions, Animations, and Conditions.

Step 6: Collaborate and gather feedback

How to go From Wireframe to Prototype in UXPin

Going from wireframing to prototyping is easy in UXPin. You can design your components from scratch to build mockups or use a design system to generate high-fidelity interactive prototypes quickly.

UXPin provides four key features to enhance your prototyping capability:

  • States: allow you to create multiple states for a single UI element and design complex interactive components like menus, drawers, and more.
  • Variables: capture data from user inputs and create personalized, dynamic user experiences–like a custom welcome message after signing up.
  • Expressions: Javascript-like functions to create complex components and advanced functionality–no code required!
  • Conditional Interactions: create if-then and if-else conditions based on user interactions to create dynamic prototypes with multiple outcomes to replicate the final product experience accurately.

Increase prototyping complexity with APIs

UXPin’s IFTTT integration allows you to connect external products and services through an API connection. For example, adding an appointment to a user’s calendar or sending an email, like a welcome message.

With UXPin’s Design Systems, advanced prototyping features, and API capabilities, you can create complex product replicas without technical expertise or input from engineers. These sophisticated prototypes enable you to get meaningful feedback from users and stakeholders to improve product user experiences.

Build wireframes and prototypes faster using the world’s most advanced product design tool. Sign up for a free trial to create your first interactive wireframe with UXPin.

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FullStory Integration – Test Usability inside UXPin

fullstory integration with uxpin

Here’s some news that will make you rethink how you’re running usability testing. UXPin has an integration with FullStory, one of the leading product analytics tools. Get valuable insights on how your end users will interact with your product right at the prototyping stage.

Key takeaways

  • UXPin integrates with FullStory, so you can get quality insights about your design on the prototyping stage.
  • UXPin and FullStory integration is available for everyone – you just need an active FullStory account to support it in UXPin.
  • Test your products before committing resources to having them built, get quality test results, and run remote testing sessions with ease.

Design fully interactive prototypes that your test subjects can use like end-products. Build sortable data tables, interactive input fields, and clickable buttons that can be easily handed off for development. Get a free trial of UXPin.

Build advanced prototypes

Design better products with States, Variables, Auto Layout and more.

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About UXPin and FullStory Integration

UXPin is an end-to-end design tool for building prototypes and handing them to the development team. Many design teams use UXPin’s preview mode to test the prototype’s user flow and get feedback from real users. The feedback helps them iterate on design and build an end-product that their users love.

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When integrated with FullStory, UXPin gives the designers even more power when conducting user testing. They don’t need to worry about recording the session, writing down what users did, where they clicked or what they couldn’t understand. FullStory has their back. FullStory tracks the user’s behavior, making it super easy for you to conduct usability tests right in UXPin.

Catch every detail

With FullStory integration, designers can rest assured that every user action will be documented. They can analyze it later or share it with stakeholders for additional feedback. It makes testing a lot easier, doesn’t it?

Focus on facilitating

When you have a tool that records your users every move, you can focus on what you’re good at– facilitating the session. Gain the time to ask follow-up questions, record where users have their points of friction, and any feedback that they had to you. When a tool documents users’ movements, you get a bandwidth to focus on their reactions.

Run remote tests

UXPin’s FullStory integration simplifies remote user testing for you. It gives you a way to run tests without the need to be in the same room as your test participants and everything gets recorded. How does it work?

  1. Send your prototype to your test subjects.
  2. Run a live test – they don’t need a UXPin account to interact with the prototype.
  3. See how FullStory saves their actions for you.

Record stakeholder feedback

The same way you send your prototype to users, you can share it with any stakeholder who needs to see the design. Track whatever they do and act on feedback fast.

How does it work?

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The integration with FullStory is available for everyone who uses UXPin. To use it, you need to have an account in UXPin and FullStory. Here’s how to sync the tools together.

  1. Log in to UXPin.
  2. Go to the Integration page in Settings.
  3. Paste in your FullStory Org Id and click ‘Apply.’
  4. Open the prototype that you want to enable tracking for.
  5. Open the Share modal and select the “Record user’s actions.’ 
  6. Copy the preview link listed below.

Find more details on how to connect and use integration in our help documentation.

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UXPin is making this integration available for trial users, too. So, go ahead, give this integration a shot. Start a free UXPin trial.

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Try our FullStory integration

Conduct user testing sessions right at the prototyping stage. Learn how end-users interact with your design before committing resources to having it built.

Since design and prototyping is a much lower investment from the business point of view for the company, such product teams can create a better ROI on their work and ship their products to market faster, gaining the upper hand over their competitors.

What makes UXPin stand apart from other prototyping tools is that all visual elements and UI components are, in fact, HTML & CSS-based, which gives you the power of creating fully interactive prototypes without asking devs to help you.

Check how UXPin’s FullStory integration works. Sign up for a free trial.

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Design Insights – 15 Tricks to Get them

design insights

Design insights are the foundation for successful product design and user experience, bridging user needs and business objectives. This comprehensive guide unpacks the importance of these insights, offering strategies to gather, analyze, and utilize them effectively. We explore various methods like user interviews, usability testing, design research, and advanced techniques like AI and machine learning.

Key takeaways:

  • Design insights provide a critical foundation for human-centered design, guiding decision-making and reducing project risks.
  • Various methods, including user interviews, usability testing, and analytics, can be employed to gather robust design insights.
  • Proper analysis of these insights involves categorizing the data, validating with stakeholders, and prioritizing actionable steps to make impactful changes during product development.
  • Advanced tools like UXPin offer code-based, fully interactive prototypes that allow designers to test and iterate more accurately than traditional methods.
  • Leveraging multiple data sources, such as crowdsourcing and real-time feedback, can provide more profound, actionable design insights.

Make better decisions using design insights with UXPin’s advanced prototyping capabilities. Sign up for a free trial to build your first interactive prototype.

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What is a Design Insight?

A design insight is a deep understanding of user needs, behaviors, and challenges. Insights are pivotal for informing good design decisions. Typically derived from a blend of data and observations, insights bridge the gap between user needs and business goals.

Why are Design Insights Important?

Drive user-centricity

Insights keep the focus on the user. Design isn’t about what you think looks good; it’s about solving problems for real people. Insights allow you to shape a user experience tailored to actual user needs and behaviors rather than assumptions and biases.

Reduce risks

Relying on solid insights avoids the pitfalls of designing something that looks great but has poor UX. Without a clear understanding of user needs, you may spend weeks or months delivering something that no one uses, resulting in massive losses for the organization.

Inform iterations

Design insights are the data points that enable you to test a hypothesis rigorously. Data points you to where adjustments are needed, ensuring that each iteration is more successful than the last.

Align teams

Insights provide a common ground for design teams, developers, and stakeholders to align their efforts. They eliminate subjectivity, making the design process more efficient while eliminating guesswork and disputes about what to build.

Enhance ROI

A design grounded in solid insights is more likely to succeed, improving metrics like user engagement, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction. This data-driven decision-making results in a better return on investment (ROI) for the design project.

How to Gather Design Insights

design and development collaboration process product

Obtaining robust design insights demands a multifaceted approach. Each method offers unique perspectives on user behavior, user needs, and business goals.

Run user interviews

Arrange face-to-face or virtual meetings with users. Structure your interviews with a combination of open-ended and targeted questions. Encourage stories rather than simple yes-no answers–for example, if you’re building a trip planner, you might ask, “Could you walk me through how you planned and booked one of your favorite vacations?” Always ask “Why?” to dig deeper into someone’s thought process.

Perform usability testing

Usability testing pinpoints exactly what elements improve or impede user interaction, steering your design modifications. Designers use prototypes to observe user interactions and flows and generate insights to guide the next steps.

Do UX research

Various UX research methods exist, including contextual inquiry, desk research, user feedback, ethnographic studies, user personas, and eye-tracking, to name a few. UX research provides empirical data that either supports or refutes your design assumptions.

Interview others

Other people who are involved in the product development and growth offer insights about business objectives, technical constraints, marketing initiatives, product goals, etc. These insights come from internal sources, including:

  • Designers: Insights into visual design, usability, and user needs
  • Researchers: Have a deep understanding of end users, their behaviors, and other user-centered data
  • Developers: Technical limitations and capabilities
  • Product Managers: Product roadmap, analytics and metrics
  • Executives: High-level business goals and revenue targets

Analyze the product’s use

Monitor user engagement metrics like session durations, click-through rates, and conversion rates. These insights tell designers when and what problem occurs. For example, a high bounce rate often indicates a mismatch between user expectations and the website’s content. The next step is to conduct interviews to determine the why behind the high bounce rate.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps illustrate where users focus their attention, offering a visual guide to your design’s strong and weak spots. Designers utilize tools like Crazy Egg or Hotjar to obtain these visual insights.

Market research

Market research uncovers trends and user expectations, which should inform your design strategy. For example, market research finds that “75% of users in the 18-34 age bracket prefer mobile apps that offer dark mode settings.”

Designers could prioritize implementing a dark mode feature, ensuring it is easily accessible within the app. This decision directly responds to market demand, likely increasing user engagement and satisfaction among the 18-34 age bracket.

Competitor analysis

A competitor analysis informs industry standards and unveils opportunities for differentiation. Designers often focus on usability, feature set, and user reviews for a well-rounded comparison.

A/B testing

A/B testing offers empirical evidence on what works between two design options, allowing designers to focus on what works and ditch what doesn’t. Testing one element at a time–a button color or a headline–is vital to measure its impact accurately.

AI and machine learning

AI goes beyond reactive data interpretation, offering forecasts on user behavior based on existing data. Leverage platforms like TensorFlow or RapidMiner for powerful predictive analytics.

Social listening

In our hyper-connected world, social listening offers real-time feedback, making it invaluable for adaptive design strategies. Platforms like Hootsuite, Qualtrics, or Mention can automate social listening and track mentions of your brand, product, or relevant keywords.

Leverage crowdsourcing

Use platforms like Reddit or specialized design forums to gather diverse viewpoints. You can also set specific design challenges to attract relevant feedback. The more specific you are, the more actionable the insights.

Implement real-time feedback loops

Integrate in-app pop-ups or chatbots to capture user feedback as they interact with your design. Quick post-interaction surveys can offer instant data without hampering the user experience.

Surveys and questionnaires

Craft questions that are open-ended but focused. Instead of asking, “Was everything okay?”, probe deeper with questions like “What challenges did you face?” Distribute your surveys through multiple channels like emails, in-app notifications, and social media to ensure a wide range of responses.

Correlate Data Sources

Combine data sources for deeper insights. For example, you might correlate user survey insights with analytics data to get a fuller picture. Trend forecasting can also be more accurate when pulling data from multiple places.

How to Analyze Design Insights

Research insights are worthless if organizations don’t use them to make decisions or drive change. Designers use insights with design thinking and problem-solving methodologies to develop effective solutions.

Here’s a step-by-step framework to help you analyze and use your design insights.

Categorize the data

  • Step 1: Sort Information: Classify your insights by source and relevance. Whether it’s from user interviews or market research, keep them separate but accessible.
  • Step 2: Identify Patterns: Look for recurring themes or issues from multiple sources to identify correlating patterns.

Validate the insights

  • Step 3: Cross-reference: Validate your findings by comparing them across different sources. For instance, if users complained about a feature in interviews, does the usability testing support this?
  • Step 4: Confirm with Stakeholders: Brief your stakeholders and ensure your insights align with business goals.

Prioritize action items

  • Step 5: Create a Priority List: Rank the insights based on the impact and effort required. Tackle the ones that yield the highest impact with the least effort first–these will drive ROI and get you early wins.
  • Step 6: Set Deadlines: Associate each action item with a timeline to keep the team accountable. Make sure these deadlines are realistic and align with your organization’s capacity.

Implement changes

  • Step 7: Make Adjustments: Begin implementing changes in your design based on prioritized insights.
  • Step 8: Document: Keep a detailed record of the changes and why.

Monitor impact

  • Step 9: Use Metrics: Employ analytics tools to measure the impact of your changes. You can also use prototypes to test the implementation before release.
  • Step 10: Iterate: Use new data to make further adjustments–test, make changes, and iterate.

Share knowledge

  • Step 11: Debrief: Share these findings with the team once you’ve made changes and observed the outcomes.
  • Step 12: Update Company Insights Database: Keep an insights database for future projects. This database avoids duplicate work and builds valuable first-party data.

Prototype and Test Design Insights with UXPin

UXPin offers powerful code-based features to translate design insights into working prototypes for accurate testing. Designers can build fully interactive prototypes to test hypotheses and use meaningful data to iterate and improve with greater accuracy and confidence.

Step 1: Create your designs

Designers can design from scratch or use one of UXPin’s built-in design libraries to build prototypes fast. UXPin also allows you to import Sketch or Figma designs for prototyping.

Step 2: Add interactive elements

Use UXPin’s rich interactive elements to build realistic components, patterns, and prototypes. Some unique UXPin features include:

  • States: Allow you to create multiple states for a single UI element and design complex interactive components like dropdown menus, tab menus, navigational drawers, and more.
  • Variables: Capture data from user inputs and create personalized, dynamic user experiences–like a custom welcome message after signing up.
  • Expressions: Javascript-like functions to create complex components and advanced functionality–no code required!
  • Conditional Interactions: Create if-then and if-else conditions based on user interactions to create dynamic prototypes with multiple outcomes to accurately replicate the final digital product experience.

Step 3: Conduct usability testing

Record user interactions and gather qualitative feedback. The real-time data you collect with UXPin is more valuable because your prototypes are fully interactive, unlike traditional static image-based design tools.

Step 4: Share prototypes with stakeholders

Generate shareable links and send prototypes to stakeholders for feedback via UXPin’s Comments. Comments make it easy for stakeholders to interact with the prototype and share valuable feedback through annotations.

Step 5: Iterate with confidence

UXPin’s interactive prototypes provide actionable insights to iterate and improve on feedback with confidence. Make data-driven design decisions, redesign, retest, and refine until your metrics indicate success.

Generate better design insights with interactive prototypes to deliver high-quality user experiences. Sign up for a free trial to explore UXPin’s advanced prototyping features.

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Breaking Down Silos to Improve Digital Product Development

Understanding DesignOps and Its Role in Design Teams copy

Breaking down silos makes it easier for everyone involved in a project to work together towards a common goal. Unfortunately, traditional working environments make cross-team collaboration different.

Newer tools with a code approach can give you an easier way to eliminate organizational silos. Explore one of them – UXPin Merge. UXPin powered with Merge technology help to break the silos between design, development, and product teams at your organization. It allows you to build prototypes with a single source of truth – coded components. Discover UXPin Merge.

Reach a new level of prototyping

Design with interactive components coming from your team’s design system.

Why Do You Need to Break the Silo Mentality?

Silos create inefficiencies that can adversely affect your teams. You might not even know that silos exist within your organization. Once you learn to notice their effects, though, you will likely spot departmental silos everywhere and see how they interfere with your company achieving a common goal.

Here are 5 common problems created by silos:

  • A narrow focus on individual tasks that do not contribute to the bigger picture.
  • Continued functionality issues that no one within the design team knows how to solve.
  • Longer product development, testing, and release timelines.
  • Lack of insight into how the company could improve its product development process.
  • Inefficiencies that add to project expenses and disappoint stakeholders.

6 Practical Tips to Break Down Silos

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With these issues in mind, consider how the following steps could break down silos and build a better company culture.

Tip #1: Form a leadership team that includes a representative from every department

You can build trust and improve communication by creating a leadership team that includes at least one representative from every department. The leadership team can keep the big picture in mind while steering the project toward its final goal.

Tip #2: Establish a unified vision before breaking the common goal into individual tasks

Communication doesn’t always trickle down to every member of a team. You can eliminate this problem by creating a unified vision and breaking the common goal into individual tasks. The tasks can get assigned to teams.

If you start with small tasks and hope that they come together in the end, you will likely find disappointment.

Tip #3: Invite team members from different departments to meetings

The pandemic forced companies to adopt remote working environments. Luckily, videoconferencing apps stepped up to help colleagues and freelancers from all over the world engage with each other in virtual environments.

Since you might need to invite marketers, developers, designers, and other colleagues, you should choose a videoconferencing service that can accommodate several people. You can even get marketing teams engaged to learn from their insights and help them plan for how they will sell the finished product.

Some of the top options include:

If you expect fewer or more participants, you can usually choose plans that match your unique needs. Choosing the right plan helps ensure that you get input from different teams without spending more money than necessary.

Many teleconferencing apps will also let you track metrics and record your meetings so you can focus on interacting with colleagues instead of taking notes. You should notice improved employee engagement when people can talk to each other without writing down their thoughts. You have to put a premium on engagement when working with remote teams.

Tip #4: Choose collaboration tools that appeal to all departments

Until recently, designers and developers often found themselves at odds when creating digital products. Even when they share long-term goals, their specializations encourage them to think about creating products in different ways.

That’s why there’s drift when it comes to the handoff process. It’s best to use a tool that will allow both devs and designers to collaborate without getting in each other’s ways. A solution with code-powered technology can help with that. 

When designers use already-coded components that can be easily reused, there’s no room for a disconnect between what is designed and what can be coded. Not to mention the time efficiency that tools like that offer – both with designing and coding the final product based on the prototype. 

Create a design system that contains all approved assets

Every team working on a product should have access to a design system that contains all approved assets and components. A design system ensures that diverse teams work toward a shared aesthetic and function even when they do not spend much time talking to each other.

When you go for a code-to-design approach in design on top of that, you don’t have to worry about syncing the changes in the code with the design components as that can be done automatically. Thanks to that you have all the approved assets up to date. 

Share information between teams as you make progress

Regular updates can incentivize developers, designers, and team members of other departments to stay focused on their projects.

Working in a vacuum often feels like a thankless—or even pointless—task. Someone designing icons might lose inspiration because they do not see what role the icons will play in the product. Similarly, a developer tweaking interactive forms might not see the point of their work until they witness it in action.

When you reach a milestone, celebrate by showing how everyone’s cumulative efforts have taken you closer to your ultimate goal. If possible, you might enjoy lunch or a drink together. If you work remotely, you can still enjoy a fun meeting that focuses more on building excitement and trust than working on the project.

Eliminate organizational silos with UXPin Merge

UXPin has always been a code-based tool for digital design. UXPin Merge takes the technology a step further by letting designers design with production-ready components That means developers get the opportunity to review designs from the perspective of fully functional code and quickly implement it

UXPin Merge also works in conjunction with several systems, including Material UI, CA Technologies Mineral UI, and IBM Carbon. This approach makes it even easier for engineers to participate in prototype development and making sure designers use components that have already been coded.

Discover more effective, collaborative ways to solve DesignOps challenges. UXPin Merge can help break down silos, reduce design inefficiency, and improve customer experience to meet your company’s goals better than ever.

 

Profile Page UI Design – How to Create User Profiles for Your App

Profile Page UI Design

The power of profile pages with UI design in mind may have been mastered by major platforms, but it can also be harnessed for applications of any size. With a comprehensive understanding of the core elements that make up a user profile, you can create engaging experiences. 

Read on for expert insight and examples to inspire successful profile page UI designs.

Key takeaways:

  • Profile page UI design is an app element that displays information and details about a specific user or account.
  • The primary purpose of a profile page is to provide a personalized and easily accessible space for users to view and manage their own information, preferences, and activity.
  • Key elements of a page like that are profile card, About me section, follow button, and more.
  • To design a perfect profile page for your app, focus on your users’ needs, as well as design simplicity and consistency.

Design super interactive prototypes that can be quickly tested with real users – without switching to another app. Use UXPin to build wireframes, mockups, and advanced prototypes that look and behave like real products. Try UXPin for free.

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Key profile page UI design elements

Profile pages can contain a myriad of information and interactive options depending on an application’s purpose. Regardless of what extras inspire your design, the following elements will provide a strong foundation that many users will instantly recognize as a profile page. 

Profile card

A profile card is one of the first things users look to add. This page allows individuals on a platform to easily identify each other and stand out. One of the most notable aspects of profile cards are user images.

If you think of any major social or business profile, what is always present? A picture of course! Most people tend to remember information they see better than information they hear while pictures tend to be remembered better than text. 

Profile pictures are a simple addition that should be kept simple. This means adding, changing, and customizing profile pictures should be as intuitive as possible for users. Depending on the purpose and audience for a given application, profile pictures may include avatars or more than one image. 

A profile card would not be complete without a name. Providing users with an easy way to add and edit their name as needed offers a searchable source of identity. Names can change with marital status, legal cases, or personal preferences, so easy editing is crucial. Nicknames or preferred names are also common and should have a space on most profile cards. 

About me section

While names and images make a person identifiable to others, there are many parts of an individual’s identity that cannot be seen in an image. These aspects are best displayed in an “About me” section in the user’s profile.

A well-designed section that users can fill out allows users to express who they are. This may include work experience, travel, cultural identities, pets, and whatever else is suitable for the platform the profile is being built on.

In networking apps, “About me” sections are expected to be a quick way to learn about applicants or colleagues. If this section is too cluttered or irrelevant, hiring teams may skip the profile altogether. This is why it is important for profile page user design to set users up for success with ideal formats and useful suggested content in their summary section.

Interests and achievements

A clean and concise summary section is useful, but it may leave users feeling as if they have more to say. This is where an interests and achievements section comes into play.

Interests are socially significant, offering users opportunities to find common topics of communication. This section should still have an intuitive and easily interpreted design, but it shouldn’t be as restrictive as a summary. The same applies to achievements, which are both professionally and personally significant.

While both interests and achievements are important for painting a full picture of an individual’s personality and life story, they are not mandatory. Some users may become frustrated if they are forced to fill out a multitude of questions to complete their profile.

Users can be gently guided to fill out their profile by requiring key information, like a name and summary, at the creation of their page, and leaving the extras to be completed later. This is progressive profiling, and it allows for the easy registry of users.

This area of a user profile opens up space for creativity, making it perfect for engaging additions like star ratings, icons, tags, and other design elements.

Follow button

To encourage social and networking behavior, profile pages require a follow button. Adding it may seem simple enough, but without proper care, this tool will not achieve its goal.

A well-placed follow button is always easy to identify, responds to interaction, and is within reach. For apps or mobile pages, this means the follow button should be placed within the area of the page that can be pressed with a thumb. If the follow button is out of this range, the extra effort required to shift a phone and reach the button may cause it to be ignored. 

Examples of great profile page UI

It can be hard to imagine your ideal profile page UI without inspiration, so here are some prime examples. 

Example #1: Personal page template by Monty Hayton


We will start out with a personal page template. The goal here is to highlight the individual on this page and who they are as a person.

The organized layout allows for multiple photos that hint at the person’s interests, but their profile photo still stands out due to its location and shape.

A short summary that encapsulates their view of the world along with a list of connections rounds out this profile. Overall, it is plenty of information with no clutter. 

Example #2: Sports app by Rifayet Uday

Our next user profile is an excellent example of how UI can be themed to suit an app’s purpose. 

The colors and shapes draw attention to the profile pictures displayed. Instead of building out the typical summary and interests section, modes of movement are emphasized. This layout highlights activity type, distance, calories, and routes taken to support the application’s purpose, encouraging exercise.  

Example #3: Fashion profile page by Vijay Verma

If you are considering a more colorful profile screen, there are plenty of ways to create intrigue without encouraging clutter. This example contains many colors with an ombre theme, however, they are strategically placed to draw attention to the interactive aspects of the page. 

Example #4: Healthcare professional profile by Mehedi Hasan Roni

It is always important to keep your audience in mind. This doctor profile page UI design is a unique example of two groups being catered to with one design. Here, the doctor can display their name, availability, and other important information that describes who they are.

At the same time, this page makes it easy for clients to read fellow patient reviews and learn about each doctor. This profile contains plenty of information for both parties while maintaining a clean and easy-to-navigate interface. 

How to design a profile page

Tip #1: Listen to your users

It is hard to impress an audience if you don’t know who your audience is. Research should be an early step in all UI design. Even as a design develops and grows, user research should guide improvements and ideas.

The first step is identifying the demographic(s) your profile page is intended for. How and why will these groups of people interact with your platform? Designs should always prioritize their user’s goals and needs.

An example of this would be creating a dentistry application. Researching the most important aspects of choosing a dentist and highlighting those factors in your app will encourage users to skip internet searches in favor of your platform. Discovering and eliminating pain points, like calling to schedule an appointment, can make your design even more attractive to users.  

Tip #2: Ensure design consistency across the entire digital product

A well-rounded digital product is designed in a manner that is cohesive enough for clients to navigate easily. This entails the color palette, patterns, fonts, and flow of information. Managing so many factors across multiple pages of information might seem daunting, but there are design systems to help with this exact task.

With libraries of design factors and design principles to work with, creating a cohesive product becomes simple. Design systems allow you to access and edit details to create consistency without making each page a copy of the last. 

Tip #3: Use the right prototyping tool

Design templates are efficient, but you can’t always guarantee their effectiveness. The best way to test a design for its intended function is to use a prototyping tool. These tools allow for real-time interaction with designs, so you can ensure they function just as you had hoped.

UXPin is one such tool that allows you to experience an interactive prototypes. This is great for design iterations. Learn more and explore all the prototype possibilities that can benefit your designs in UXPin.

Tip #4: Collect feedback from team members and users alike

Platforms are created for users, but they could not exist without the efforts of a well-connected team. Designing and prototyping with a tool that allows for collaboration between teams is crucial. Insights can also come to light and be easily explored through organizing design critique sessions.

After considering team input, user feedback can also be included. Test groups from your target demographics can be given an opportunity to work with end-stage prototypes of your page to determine areas of improvement. This input can also be considered in real time, where feedback from users on a live app can be used to guide future updates in UI design. 

Tip #5: Avoid clutter by prioritizing user information 

The perfect balance of personality and clarity is dependent on your page’s purpose. An exercise profile can function with a name, image, and recent workout stats while a social media profile may spill over with hobbies and fun facts.

For the best of both worlds, consider the ways in which profile information can be condensed, such as drop-down menus or other interactive components that break information into palatable chunks.   

Summary

In the end, profile pages are all about the users. Their design offers a chance to be seen and see others in a functional format. Your ideal balance of design elements may be hard to visualize, but that is what prototyping tools are for. UXPin offers you an opportunity to see and interact with your design through all stages of development. The result is a cohesive, well-rounded platform that can even be vetted through user testing and team critiques.

Refine your profile page UI design prototype by filling it with real user data at UXPin. Sign up for a free trial.

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Design to React code – How UXPin Merge Speeds it up

design to react code

Converting designs into functional React code is a pivotal step that often comes with challenges such as misinterpretation, inefficiency, and inconsistency. Emerging technologies like UXPin’s Merge aim to streamline this antiquated process by facilitating a code-to-design workflow, allowing you to design with React components. 

Key takeaways:

  • The traditional design-to-code workflow often results in lost design details, extended iteration cycles, and version inconsistencies.
  • UXPin’s Merge technology offers a code-based design approach streamlining the transition from design to functional React code.
  • Merge allows you to import React components directly into UXPin’s design editor for a more dynamic and interactive design experience.
  • With UXPin’s Merge, changes to React components in the repository automatically sync, making maintenance and customization easier.
  • The code-to-design workflow in UXPin provides both time efficiency and higher fidelity between the initial design and the final product.

Design with React code using an intuitive design interface and Merge technology. Discover UXPin Merge.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

How Do You Convert Designs to React Code?

In the traditional product development workflow, designers craft mockups and prototypes, often using tools like Sketch or Figma. They then hand off these designs and documentation to developers who translate them into functional React code.

The handoff usually involves exporting designs into a standard format, perhaps annotated with extra details like dimensions, colors, and assets. 

This process relies on designer/developer cooperation or a solo dev with both skill sets. Since it takes many years to develop competency in design and development, not many people choose to master both. There are other challenges.

What are the Challenges of Getting Design to React Code?

code design developer
  1. Lost in Translation: Despite the best efforts, some design details often get lost or misinterpreted during the handoff.
  2. Iteration Lag: If the developer needs clarification or the designer needs to make changes, the iterative cycle elongates, wasting time and resources.
  3. Component Inconsistency: Without a shared language or toolset, designers and developers can end up creating their own versions of the same reusable components, leading to inconsistency.
  4. Static Designs: Traditional design tools often produce static mockups, not accounting for dynamic data and states, leaving gaps in the representation of the final product.
  5. Version Confusion: As design and code evolve, keeping track of the most current version becomes a nightmare.

Why we need a better alternative

The legacy workflow has its merits, but it’s far from optimal in a world where user experience can make or break a product. Add the component-centric architecture of React, and the room for error widens. 

Here’s why we need a better alternative to the traditional design-to-code workflow:

  1. Time Efficiency: The traditional method extends project timelines. Shorter development cycles are not just a desire; they’re a need.
  2. Design Integrity: The fidelity of the final product to the initial design often gets compromised. A new approach can uphold the designer’s vision to the tee.
  3. Dynamic Reality: Today’s UI is interactive and data-driven. Static design handoffs can’t encapsulate this dynamic and interactive reality.
  4. Consistency: A consistent UI requires a single source of truth for designers and developers, which the traditional model lacks.
  5. Feedback Loop: Real-time collaboration can iron out issues on the fly instead of post facto corrections.

The traditional model also makes it challenging and time-consuming for solo devs to prototype and test. They must either learn a design tool or build, test, and iterate in code, adding significant time to the project.

Luckily, there is an alternative to this legacy design workflow where you can design using React code.

How Do You Design in React?

design and development collaboration process product communication 1

Wouldn’t it be easier to drag and drop UI components to prototype user interfaces instead of writing and editing React code? That’s precisely what UXPin’s Merge technology does.

Unlike Figma, Adobe XD, and other image-based UI design tools, UXPin is code-based, rendering HTML, CSS, and Javascript behind the scenes. This code-based technology means you can use code components on the design canvas in a no-code environment with Merge technology.

Merge lets you import React components from a repository into UXPin’s design editor. The UI elements appear in UXPin’s Design System Libraries for you to drag and drop for prototyping. You can edit styling and interactivity via the Properties Panel defined by the component’s React props.

How UXPin Merge helps you design with React code components

Devs can use the standard Properties Panel interface or switch to JSX mode for a more familiar code environment. Any changes you make to the React components in the repository automatically sync to UXPin, allowing you to update, maintain, and customize your UI elements, patterns, and templates.

This code-to-design workflow gives developers the best of both worlds–complete control over the codebase and repository with the simplified workflow of a design tool interface. Instead of editing code, devs can drag and drop to move components about the UI or make adjustments via the Properties Panel.

How to Connect Merge to Your Repository

uxpin merge react sync library git

UXPin offers two ways to sync a component library:

Git Integration (React only): 

Direct connection to a React component repository (GitHub, GitLab, etc. ). We recommend the Git Integration because it gives you Merge’s features, including:

Storybook Integration

Connect any Storybook to UXPin, including React, Vue, Angular, Ember, and more. While you don’t get all the Merge features, Storybook offers many benefits, including addons and plugins for managing component libraries.

npm Integration and Merge Component Manager

You can also use the npm integration and Merge Component Manager to import individual UI elements from open-source design systems on the npm registry. 

UXPin offers several built-in Merge design systems to start prototyping without any setup process, including Fluent UI (Git), Ant Design (npm integration), MUI (Git), Material UI (Storybook), or UXPin Boilerplate (Git).

How to Add React Components and Sync to UXPin Using Merge’s Git Integration

Once you have created a UXPin account and completed the onboarding process–request access to Merge–you can start setting up your repository using the Merge boilerplate repository.

Prerequisites for this step-by-step tutorial from UXPin’s docs:

  • You have completed the Easy Start tutorial (request access to Merge).
  • You’re familiar with HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
  • You have at least a basic understanding of React.js.

Step 1: Run the dev environment

Start by running your Merge Dev environment. Execute npm start at the root, which runs the following script:

uxpin-merge –webpack-config ./webpack.config.js –wrapper ./src/UXPinWrapper/UXPinWrapper.js –uxpin-domain merge.uxpin.cloud

  • –webpack-config: Specifies the webpack config location.
  • –wrapper: Use if your React components need a wrapper, like a theme provider.
  • –uxpin-domain: Points Merge to the correct server.

Step 2: Naming conventions

Maintain identical directory, filename, and component names.

  • Example: ./src/NewComponent/NewComponent.js

Step 3: Export component

Ensure your component has an export default.

  • Example: export default NewComponent;

Step 4: Define props

Use PropTypes or Flow for props definition (Typescript interfaces scheduled for release). They become editable in UXPin’s Properties Panel.

Step 5: JSX preset

Create a JSX preset file within a presets directory inside your component folder.

  • Example: ./src/NewComponent/presets/0-default.jsx

Step 6: Update config

Finally, add the component to uxpin.config.js, located in the root directory.

Step 7: Restarting Merge

After adding new components, restart the Merge process by hitting CMD+C in the terminal. If you get a lifecycle error upon starting a new Merge process, type killall node -9 into the terminal and try again.

How the React Code to Design Works in UXPin

Once you have completed the initial setup, Merge will automatically sync any changes to UXPin’s Design System Libraries. Merge’s Version Control notifies you of the update, and you can choose when to switch to the latest release. Version Control also lets you change to earlier design system versions.

Setting up pages

Unlike traditional design tools using frames and artboards, UXPin uses a pages approach–a more familiar project structure for developers. You can add and manage your project’s pages in the Pages & Layers panel left of the design canvas. You can also view all pages to get an overview of your project file.

UXPin offers many standard page/screen sizes for desktop, TV, mobile (iOS, Windows, Android), tablet, wearables, and more. You can also create a custom viewport.

Designing with React code components

Drag and drop components onto the design canvas to create prototypes. Merge components “snap together” so you can create seamless layouts that look like a coded UI.

You can adjust the UI element’s properties via the Properties Panel and add Interactions for page transitions, animations, and microinteractions. UXPin offers Javascript-like Conditional Interactions with “if-then” and “if-else” conditions to create dynamic prototypes indistinguishable from code.

Any APIs, interactivity, or other properties you program in the repo are available in UXPin, allowing you to generate accurate replicas of the final product.

How to grow your component library with UXPin’s Patterns

With UXPin’s Patterns, you can evolve your design system by combining UI elements without writing code. You can use any Merge libraries imported using the Git or npm integrations–unfortunately, this feature is not available for Storybook.

Once you create a new pattern, you can save it to your Pattern’s library and share it with team members. This feature allows you to prototype and test comprehensively before committing the UI element to code, saving countless hours of fixes and front-end debt.

Patterns also lets you:

  • Save multiple variants of a pattern to optimize prototyping workflows.
  • Design with advanced components–even if they are not in your design library.

Design to code faster

Designing with React components creates a smooth, seamless transition from the design process to development. Simply import the component library to your project and copy the layouts from UXPin. Merge produces production-ready JSX to copy/paste from UXPin’s Spec Mode to your IDE.

Use Case: How Code to Design Simplifies Design for Non-Designers

TeamPassword is a five-person startup with two developers and no designers. The development team switched to React in 2022 and adopted a custom version of MUI. TeamPassword’s engineers use Merge to sync their UI library to UXPin for prototyping and testing.

Merge enables TeamPassword to ship products and features much faster with higher consistency and fewer errors, giving them an edge in the highly competitive security tech market. They have also eliminated drift because they use the same components for design and development.

“Brand is essential in this market. Customers entrust us with sensitive information in their login records. Inconsistencies or an outdated design can cause some customers to question whether we are technologically up-to-date enough to keep that information secure. Front-end development builds trust and confidence in the backend performance.” Tony Caccavo, Director of Operations at TeamPassword

Ditch design to code and switch to UXPin’s code-to-design workflow to prototype and test faster. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

Try UXPin Merge

Low Code vs Traditional Development – Which is Best for You?

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Traditionally, any software project called for a high upfront investment and an expert team, who would spend months on creating code. Fast forward to today, and the software development process has become much more accessible, with solutions like low code keeping the need for manual coding at a minimum. 

In this piece, we look at what low code development is, where it overlaps with design, and how it fits into the wider product development process.

Key takeaways:

  • Low code development is a method of creating an app with a pre-built components; it differs from traditional development, because a developer doesn’t need to start coding from scratch.
  • Low code democratizes software development, increases its speed, simplifies maintenance, decreases costs, and makes coding a collaborative experience.
  • Traditional development provides full control over the process but it tends to be more time-consuming and requires a higher level of coding expertise.

Try our low code UI design solution – UXPin Merge. It allows you to drag and drop coded components to create layouts and user flows for your app. Join our revolution. Discover UXPin Merge.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

What is low code development?

Low code development is a software development method that simplifies and speeds up the app development process by allowing you to code through a graphic user interface. Instead of following a traditional app development environment that relies on text, you create your app by using prebuilt, drag-and-drop elements. This helps keep the need for manual coding at a bare minimum.

On top of software development, product team members can also use low code solutions to create prototypes and deploy the latest version of the app to the live environment.

While you might have also heard of an approach called “no code development”, it’s not synonymous with low code. As the names already hint, the former entirely eliminates the need to write script and can be used by those who have zero coding knowledge. Meanwhile, low code might call for a small amount of coding.

How does low code development differ from a traditional development process?

There are significant differences between low code and traditional development processes, which mainly relate to the development speed, cost, and customization options. Let’s take a look at each one in more detail. 

Coding democratization

Since low code solutions offer a visual interface and pre-built components, they can be used even by those who have very limited coding skills. They include a library of ready-made templates and drag-and-drop tools that users can take advantage of. This makes low code platforms much more accessible. The traditional app development process, on the other hand,  cannot be done without the involvement of developers, who usually have to be proficient in multiple programming languages. It includes a lot of manual work.

Development speed

One of the biggest advantages of using low code platforms is improving the speed of product development. A lot of stages of the development process, including prototyping and testing, can be automated. In traditional app development, programmers write code from scratch, and then Q&A specialists run extensive testing, and the development team implements iterations when necessary. All this prolongs the product launch. 

Customization

When it comes to customization, low code platforms perform great if you want to mainly stick with standardized functionalities. If you want to get a bit more creative and stand out, for example, by offering a wide range of integrations, you’ll be better off going with the traditional product development process. Customized, complex, and unique features require manual coding.

Maintenance

As elements in low code solutions are standardized and ready-made, and therefore thoroughly tested, they include fewer bugs and integration problems. However, the downside is that these functionalities are not as sophisticated as in the case of those developed by programmers. The traditional development process grants more control over maintenance and offers more scaling possibilities, but also requires continuous product updates, which are done manually by developers. 

Collaboration

Since low code platforms require little coding skills, they can be understood and used by individuals with no tech background. This, in turn, encourages collaboration between IT and business teams and creates a more inclusive development environment. The traditional app development process, on the other hand, relies heavily on specialized knowledge, which might lead to friction between developers and non-technical team members. 

Cost

Low code should be your go-to approach if you want to create a simple product, the cost of development will be much lower than in the case of a traditional development process, with faster time to market. But you need to be aware of licensing fees, the more licenses you require the higher your costs will be. If you decide to develop your app using the traditional app development process, then you might have to invest more upfront but you will have total control of your costs. 

How to tell which one is better for your project?

In summary, low code development offers speed, accessibility, and ease of use but may be limited in handling complex, highly customized applications. Traditional development provides full control, flexibility, and scalability but tends to be more time-consuming and requires a higher level of coding expertise. The choice between low code and traditional development depends on the specific project requirements, the complexity of the application, and the available development resources. Some organizations may even use a hybrid approach, combining low code and traditional development.

Low Code and Traditional Development Follow the Same Process

Regardless of whether you decide to follow the traditional coding route or turn to low code solutions, you’ll need to follow the same steps of the product development. Software development is the penultimate stage, preceded by ideation, research, prototyping, and design. 

Here’s a brief overview of the seven steps of the product development process:

Step 1: Ideation

You begin by meeting together as a team to generate and brainstorm ideas. The goal is to unravel your creativity, explore various solutions, and assess their initial viability.

Step 2: Research & Idea Screening

After shortlisting the most promising ideas, you move on to proof of concept – researching and validating them against potential users and the broader market. Some methods include running surveys and interviews with those who share the same traits as your target audience. Once you’ve proven the idea promising and worth further exploring, you can move on to prototypes.

Step 3: Prototyping

Here’s where you generate your very first visuals. Prototypes come in two forms – low fidelity (lo-fi) and high fidelity (hi-fi). Depending on where you want to test them out, you could work with a digital prototype or a physical one (like cut-out, paper wireframes).

Step 4: Detailed UI Designs

High-fidelity prototypes created with tools like UXPin closely emulate your real-life product. They come with all the interactivity and branding you want in the live app to give testers the full experience. 

Step 5: Validation & testing

At this stage, you engage in the final validation of your designs. You collect feedback from testers, brainstorm with other members of the team, and aim to distinguish your solution from any competitors on the market.

Step 6: Development

Traditionally, this step is often called the “developer handoff”. Your design team provides your software engineers with the complete design, along with comprehensive design guidelines and specifications. Developers use these guidelines as they translate the designs into the coded app.

Step 7: Launch

Lastly, you create a go-to-market strategy and bring your app to the market.

You can learn more about each stage by giving our product development guide a read. For the sake of this piece, however, it’s important that you understand how critical the transition between the design and development phases is for your turning your idea into an outstanding product. Let’s discuss how it affects both your low code and traditional development projects.

Why Design Matters for Low Code and Traditional Development  

Here’s what a strong focus on design brings to the table:

1. Idea validation & minimizing risk: Lack of product-market fit and running out of cash are the top two reasons for startup failure. Both could be avoided by validating the app idea by asking testers to interact with the prototype. This way, you can ensure that you won’t invest your time and financial resources into launching a product that won’t resonate with the market or still needs significant refining.

3. Keeping your go-to-market process cost-efficient: Creating prototypes, both low- and high-fidelity, can be an incredibly cost-effective and insightful process. By using a product design tool like UXPin, you create visuals that reflect the end product’s functionalities, features, and overall ‘feel’. Additionally, if you already have any coded components of your app, you can merge them into your prototypes. This only accelerates design testing and further minimizes your upfront financial investment. This brings us to the next point.

4. Iteration and improvements: As you haven’t committed to coding the end app yet, you can continuously improve and iterate your designs. This agility lets you incorporate feedback from testers and react to any market trends or fluctuations that require design changes.

5. Alignment with resources: It’s hard to figure out how much money you’ll have to invest in app development without having a well-defined design. It allows you to effectively allocate resources, know what technology to use, how much time it requires to develop it, and what skills you need to successfully complete the project. 

6. Enhanced communication: Good design often leads to better communication among those involved in the project, including stakeholders and potential investors. Since it visually shows your ideas, it’s easier for everyone to grasp your vision, provide feedback, and get buy-in. By using the right prototyping tools such as UXPin, not only can you bring new products to the market faster, but also significantly improve communication between developers and designers. 

Try Low Code with UXPin Merge

Facilitate your product team’s work by allowing them to use drag-and-drop for coding. Build beautiful and fully functional UIs with UXPin Merge. Accelerate your product development process. Discover UXPin Merge.

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Overengineering — What is it and How Design Can Help?

overengineering

Striking a balance between innovation and usability is essential. However, many organizations fall into the costly overengineering trap, adding unnecessary complexities that diverge from user needs, often overshadowing the primary product purpose. Explore the signs your product is overengineered and the steps you can take to prevent this resource-hungry problem.

Key takeaways:

  • Overengineering introduces unnecessary complexities to products, distracting from user-centric design and functionality.
  • Manifestations of overengineering include feature bloat, redundant processes, and overly advanced tech in simple products.
  • Regular user feedback, product analytics, and competitor analysis can help identify signs of overengineering.
  • Combatting overengineering involves adhering to design principles like clarity and simplicity, using iterative design processes, and leveraging tools like UXPin’s Merge.
  • Unifying design and development teams through shared UI libraries and systems reduces drift and the risk of over-complicated solutions.

Reduce overengineering, front-end debt, and other common product development challenges. Discover UXPin Merge, the only design technology that makes it easy to prototype with coded components from Git, Storybook or npm package. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

What is Overengineering?

Overengineering occurs when designers or developers add unnecessary complexity to digital products rather than focusing on what users need. While aiming for perfection, they complicate processes, interfaces, or functionalities. 

Overengineering stems from a few sources:

  • Predicting distant future needs
  • Misunderstanding users
  • Technological over-exuberance

What are Examples of Overengineering?

Knowing what it looks like in real-world scenarios is essential to identify overengineering. Here are typical examples where the urge to do too much overshadows the user’s actual needs. 

Example #1: Feature bloat in software products

Think of a word processing tool developed for basic document editing but ends up with numerous advanced features better suited for graphic design or database management. Such additions confuse average users and divert resources from improving core functionalities.

Example #2: eCommerce platforms with complex checkouts

Instead of a straightforward three-step checkout process, an online store incorporates unnecessary steps like quizzes to determine shopping preferences or overly detailed account creation protocols. These additions add friction, often leading to cart abandonment.

Example #3: Redundant user onboarding flows

A task management app has an onboarding process with multiple screens and excessive tutorials. Design teams thought they were helping users but created roadblocks and friction. Users seeking quick solutions might find this cumbersome and abandon the product.

Example #4: Physical products with overly advanced tech

Consider a toaster with Wi-Fi connectivity, voice commands, and a dozen bread settings. While it sounds cutting-edge, most users only want evenly toasted bread without navigating a tech maze each morning.

Example #5: Websites with overdone animations and interactions

Some websites prioritize aesthetics so much that they inundate users with animations, autoplay videos, and hover effects on every element. This overengineering hampers page load speed and distracts from the primary content.

Example #6: Mobile apps with unnecessary permissions

An alarm clock app requesting access to contacts, messages, and media files is a classic overengineering case. Such overreaches often raise privacy concerns and deter downloads.

How to Identify Overengineering

Step 1: Conduct regular user feedback sessions

Engage your core user base through surveys, interviews, and usability tests. Listen for indications that they’re overwhelmed, confused, or unable to pinpoint the product’s primary function.

Step 2: Analyze feature usage metrics

Product analytics are an excellent indicator of overengineering. Keep a keen eye on how users adopt new features. Employ analytics tools to monitor which features users frequently access. If significant portions of your product remain untouched, it’s a sign of overengineering or misunderstanding user needs.

For example, many companies have rushed to implement AI into their products in 2023. Imagine a photo-editing app’s analytics reveal that only 10% of users use the AI voice-controlled editing tool, whereas 90% stick to basic editing features.

While counting lines of code isn’t a direct measure of overengineering, an inflated code count for simple functionalities may be telling.

Step 3: Review software development complexity

Evaluate how intricate the development process is for each feature. A bloated or overly complex codebase can be a telltale sign of overengineering. Consider software engineering best practices to avoid ‘nice-to-haves’ and unnecessarily intricate solutions.

Step 4: Check iteration and maintenance duration

If updating or fixing small sections of your product demands excessive time, the product might be overengineered. Products should be modular and easily maintainable.

Review the need for frequent refactoring in the codebase. Regular rewrites or significant changes indicate complexities that could be due to overengineering.

Step 5: Evaluate onboarding and training time

How long does it take new users to understand your product? A steep learning curve often indicates unnecessary complexity.

Step 6: Benchmark against competitors

Compare your product’s feature set and complexity with direct competitors using a service safari to identify if your product is more complex without clear added value.

Step 7: Consult cross-functional teams

Get feedback from designers, developers, product managers, and stakeholders on whether the product’s complexity aligns with its goals.

How to Combat Overengineering in a New Product

Using design thinking–desirability, viability, and feasibility

  • Desirability: Ground your designs in real user needs. Conduct in-depth user research, including interviews and surveys, to establish what users genuinely want or need. This data ensures that every design choice aligns with user requirements, effectively curbing the urge to add unnecessary UI elements. Ensure that every design aligns with business requirements to add true value and avoid unnecessary complexities.
  • Viability: Ensure your design choices support overarching business needs by continually weighing the design’s potential impact on the business regarding revenue and brand perception. Adopt a disciplined approach, asking tough questions about the long-term business value of each design feature or element.
  • Feasibility: Maintain close-knit collaboration with the development team to understand the product’s technical limitations and capabilities. By designing with an awareness of what’s technically feasible, you prevent creating unnecessarily complex designs, saving valuable time and resources.

Read more about desirability, viability, and feasibility in product design in our top article about it.

User-centered design approach

Ground every design decision in user insights using methods and processes that place the user front and center:

  • Deep Dive into Research: Start every project with comprehensive user research to identify pain points, needs, and aspirations. Utilize tools like user personas and journey maps to visualize and prioritize this information.
  • Prioritize Feedback: Make user feedback an integral part of the design process. Use tools like feedback forms, usability testing sessions, and A/B testing to collect and act on this input.
  • Continuous Validation: The user-centered design approach requires ongoing validation, constantly checking your designs against user needs, ensuring alignment, and avoiding unnecessary complexity.

Iterative design and prototyping

Rapid prototyping and iterative design are your best defenses against overengineering:

  1. Start Simple: Always start with the most basic version of your design, focusing on core functionalities. Low-fidelity wireframes or paper sketches are effective starting points. Focus on creating an MVP first, ensuring you’re addressing core needs before adding supplementary features.
  2. Iterate Often: As feedback comes in, refine the design. This progressive refinement ensures you build a solid foundation rather than piling on unnecessary features.
  3. Embrace Failures: Recognize that not every iteration will be perfect, so you can pivot without wasting time on over-complicated solutions. Implementing an Agile methodology can further support iterative design, as it emphasizes adaptability and user feedback.

Following clear design principles

Setting clear and concise design principles aligns product teams with a common goal and purpose. Here are some typical examples of design principles to help with overengineering:

  • Clarity Over Creativity: While we strive to be design innovators, clarity should always be the priority. Ensure that users can intuitively understand and navigate your designs.
  • Consistency is Key: Maintain consistency in UI elements, typography, and color schemes. This uniformity reduces cognitive load and avoids the pitfall of designing overly complex interfaces.
  • Simplicity Matters: Less is often more. Eliminate unnecessary elements and prioritize content and features that add genuine value to the user. 

Remember the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) and YAGNI (You Aren’t Gonna Need It) principles–overcomplicating often leads to more problems than solutions.

Leverage design systems to align teams

Design systems help streamline and standardize design and development with a shared UI library, guidelines, documentation, and principles. 

  • Unified Components: Design systems provide reusable components to ensure consistency while discouraging one-off, overengineered solutions.
  • Documented Guidelines: With clear guidelines on design, typography, and interaction patterns, you prevent “reinventing the wheel” and keep designs within established efficient boundaries.
  • Facilitate Collaboration: A well-maintained design system eases the collaboration between designers, developers, and other stakeholders, ensuring everyone is on the same page and reducing the likelihood of overengineering. Design systems also promote extensibility, ensuring that they remain cohesive and manageable as products evolve. 

UXPin’s Merge technology further streamlines design decisions by unifying teams through consistent design patterns.

How to Solve Overengineering With UXPin Merge

Product developers can use UXPin’s Merge technology to import code components into the design process, bridging the gap between design and development while creating an organization-wide single source of truth.

Unifying teams with a single UI library

Using the same UI library for design and development eliminates drift and inconsistencies, preventing teams from creating the glut that often leads to overengineering. Designers have the same constraints in UXPin as engineers developing the final product because they pull components from the same repository.

These UI elements have styling, interactions, APIs, and other properties ‘baked-in,’ so designers build solutions focused on user needs rather than designing from scratch–which often leads to drift and overengineering.

Designers and developers speak the same language

Designers often use additional platforms and workarounds to mimic code’s fidelity and functionality, leading to features or implementations that don’t align with reality. 

Using code components in the design process means designers and programmers speak a unified language backed by code, translated by Merge. Designers use visual elements, and engineers use the code behind them so they’re always aligned and grounded in reality. Merge promotes transparency between writing code and design, ensuring both aspects progress in harmony.

Leveraging microservices architecture combined with UXPin Merge can further modularize functionalities, reducing chances of overcomplication.

Enhanced user testing

These interactive components allow designers to build prototypes that look and feel like the final product. End users and stakeholders can interact with Merge prototypes like they would the end product, providing design teams with meaningful, actionable feedback during the design process.

Designers can use this data to make accurate, data-driven decisions, reducing unnecessary features and the possibility of overengineering.

Stop overengineering and enhance your product development process with UXPin Merge. Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

Try UXPin Merge

What is Storybook and Why Your Product Team Needs it?

Storybook is a crucial tool in the context of building a UI component library. It simplifies the process of designing, sharing, and collaborating on UI components.

Your team can easily showcase and test individual components, ensuring they adhere to your style guide and work seamlessly. This streamlines design handoff, enhancing the product development process.

Key takeaways:

  • Storybook streamlines UI component library development.
  • It facilitates design, testing, and sharing of components.
  • It’s a great tool for modern product teams .

With UXPin Merge, you can integrate Storybook and UXPin, so your product team can finally start exploring design in the best code-based, atomic environment. Discover what UXPin Merge is about.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

Test radical ideas in isolated sandboxes

When you create components, you undoubtedly go through several versions before you decide which one to use. Even if you’re just making the shape of a button, the designer in you insists that you try it with blocky edges, rounded edges, slightly more rounded edges, and ridiculously rounded edges. You cannot move on to the next task until you have seen what your component looks like on the screen,

Storybook understands this, so it lets you test all of your ideas—no matter how wild they might seem—in isolated sandboxes.

You’ll discover how much time this ultimately saves you when you start working with interactive components. What happens when you click the button with ridiculously rounded edges to submit text to a website? Turns out, the edges are way too round and the button is nearly impossible for someone with accessibility challenges to use. Now, throw that one out and test the others until you find the one that works best. You can play as much as you want without influencing anything outside of the sandbox.

Related tip: Storybook now has an add-on that will help you test components to make sure they meet accessibility standards.

Your designers have pre-approved components, so they can build freely!

Atomic UI components break down the design into small pieces. Your new designer doesn’t have to stare at your style guide for an hour before feeling confident enough to make a password-retrieval request form.

Instead of working from scratch, they open your UI component library to find all of your approved components. If they can integrate Storybook with their design tool, it gives a whole new level of flexibility as well. From this point, the work becomes about as straightforward as possible. They:

  • Choose an empty text field from the component library.
  • Adjust the field’s size just to make sure it looks attractive on the page.
  • Add a “submit” button from—no surprise here—the component library.
  • Adjust the button’s position.
  • Add some text so users know what information to provide.

That’s it. They don’t have to knock on your door, send you a Slack message, or try to reach you on Teams. The components in the UI library are already approved, so there’s no reason to seek permission.

This aspect alone is going to save your designers tons of time because they simply adjust components instead of creating them from nothing. Perhaps more importantly, you will have more time and fewer headaches because you get to concentrate on your work without getting interrupted millions of times a day (slight exaggeration, but it feels like that many on some days).

Designers hate code and coders hate design: Storybook is their peace treaty

How many visual designers do you know who have enough coding experience to work as developers? The answer is: very few.

How many sighs do you hear pour from your development team when your designers send over new visuals? The answer is pretty close to infinite.

Everyone knows why the disconnect between visual design and development teams exists. They don’t have a common language that makes them effective communicators. Of course, your developers are frustrated! The designers keep sending over ideas that will take too much time to figure out or they ask for tweaks in components that already exist!

Storybook erases this problem by giving designers and developers an interpreter that makes communication easier.

In Storybook, designers can combine and adjust components without knowing how to code. They just access the Controls function and make changes. It literally takes seconds to alter designs.

Just as importantly, Storybook will interpret the changes and update the design’s code. When it reaches your developers, they already have code that makes sense.

Yes, they should review and test UIs to make sure they function as intended. Yes, they should test the entire product in case some stray character ruins everything. For the most part, though, your developers become gatekeepers who can focus on other aspects of their jobs… like actually building behind-the-scenes functionality that will process payments, recommend products, and perform other tasks that help your company generate more revenue.

UXPin + Storybook = ❤️

Now that UXPin and Storybook integrate, you can move your UI component library from Storybook and use it directly in your product design and prototyping application.

You get the best of both worlds. And you get it really, really fast without any complications. If you’re curious to learn more about streamlining product development with UXPin Merge, request access here.

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React vs. Flutter: Which Framework Works Best?

The Best React Design Patterns You Should Know About copy 8

Both React Native and Flutter have received a lot of publicity lately. Both are frameworks that make it easier to build sites or apps, but one stands out above the other. Not all solutions work for everyone, so it’s important to research the best option for you. Today, we’re looking at React vs. Flutter, which one is best for your programming needs?

Apps are now being used to manage nearly everything in our lives. According to Global Web Index, people are turning more and more to mobile apps to keep track of their time and everything else.

Take UI components directly from Git repo, Storybook, or through NPM and drag and drop the coded components to create your layout faster. Discover UXPin Merge.

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Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

Why React Native is Better Than Flutter

There are a number of factors to consider when comparing these two platforms. However, the desired end result plays a big part in the decision-making process. You want a framework that is easy to work with, fast, and that results in a stable app that does what you need it to. Of course, you’ll want to easily update the app and manage the code, too, but the main goal is to have a functional, non-problematic product at the end of it all.

With that in mind, let’s look at what these two frameworks have to offer.

React Native was released by Facebook in 2015 and is a framework that uses React (available since 2013) to create native applications. Flutter is also meant for building native apps, but is a portable UI toolkit. Flutter was released in 2018, by Google.

Both frameworks are free and both are open source, though engineers continue to work on them.

The user interface is more varied

An important factor to consider when choosing a framework for your app is the user interface. How will users experience your app on different platforms?

The user interface

React Native offers native components for Android and iOS, so the experience is the same across platforms. All the components, buttons, widgets, etc. are the same across platforms and when you update the OS UI, all the app components will be immediately updated. React Native has a wide variety of external UI kits to choose from. You can pick from iOS-style components, or several other kits to fit your needs.

Flutter has a flexible, fast-rendering UI with its own design, including interactive widgets, platform, and visual designs. These replace the native components, which not everyone wants to do. Flutter also uses pixel rendering to ensure the UI is identical, down to the pixel, on all devices.

If you want variety and options, React Native is what you need. Flutter offers more flexibility, but less variety.

Simpler programming language

You may already be aware that React Native uses JavaScript. This is a well-known programming language that most developers are already used to. In fact, According to Stack Overflow, over 70% of pro developers are familiar with JavaScript. When you move into using React, it is intuitive if you’ve previously used JavaScript.

Flutter uses the programming language Dart, which is almost exclusive to Google. It does allow you to compile native code at a more rapid rate, but it means a steeper learning curve for anyone outside of Google.

In this case, most people prefer to stick with what they already know, so React Native tends to be chosen.

Less time is required for development

Developers are always in a rush to get their apps finished, perfected, and sent out. That means, they need React Native, as it is much faster than Flutter. The framework is designed to make creating a mobile app very quickly. A number of factors play into this, including the ease of programming JavaScript in place of Dart.

Flutter takes longer due to the fact you have to code each section separately. React Native offers ready-made components that can be placed and adjusted as needed. You can also reuse these components as necessary without affecting the other components in the app.

Different coding styles

React Native has a more complicated code structure, but you can use the same code throughout web apps, Android, iOS, Windows OS, etc. This makes it possible to share codes in third party libraries that are free for the taking. You, as the developer, can focus on the actual code, rather than worrying about whether or not it is compatible.

Flutter, however, leans toward the simpler code options. You can code everything in one place and have access to it all. Templates, data, and styles are not separated. While this is simpler to use, code sharing can only be done between Android and iOS. This is expected to change, but for now, Flutter is much more limited than React.

Overall, React Native is preferred by 42% of developers and Flutter is selected by 39%, showing a clear preference for React Native. While both options are used for creating apps, there is a definite reason to select React over Flutter.

Are you looking to create your app or web page? Try building the layout with UXPin Merge. Drag and drop React components to create interactive and beautiful UIs in a fraction of the time. Discover UXPin Merge.

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Best Prototyping Tools that Use React

React prototyping tools min

Are you creating a React app or website? If you are, you can use real React components in prototyping. How to that? You will find an answer in this article.

Key tools:

  • UXPin Merge
  • Framer
  • Storybook
  • React-Proto

Build React prototypes with your dev’s components coming from Git, Storybook, or npm. Try UXPin Merge and assemble stunning, production-ready layouts 10x faster. Discover UXPin Merge.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

UXPin Merge

logo uxpin merge

UXPin’s Merge technology allows you to import code components from a repository into the design process. You can import your product’s design system or an open-source library to build high-fidelity, fully functioning React prototypes.

With Merge, you can prototype cross-platform applications from wearables to native apps, web applications, and even TVs. You can test prototypes in the browser or via UXPin Mirror for iOS and Android applications.

There are three ways to import code components into UXPin using Merge:

  • The Git Integration enables you to import React components directly from a Git repository giving you full access to Merge’s features.
  • Merge’s Storybook Integration allows you to connect any Storybook, providing access to more front-end technologies, including React, Vue, Angular, and more.
  • The npm Integration uses the Merge Component Manager to import individual UI elements from open-source design systems on the npm registry.

Key features

  • Version Control (Git Integration only): any changes to the design system’s repository automatically sync to UXPin and notify designers of the latest release.
  • Patterns (Git Integration only): grow your library by creating new patterns using design system components or incorporating elements from other design systems.
  • Drag-and-drop workflow: drag components from UXPin’s Design Libraries onto the canvas to create user interfaces. Adjust pre-defined properties via the Properties Panel to change styling, interactions, etc.
  • Collaborative: product teams can collaborate with stakeholders via UXPin’s Comments–even if they don’t have a paid UXPin account.
  • Spec Mode & Documentation: design handoffs are smoother with Merge because developers already have access to the same repository. They can use Spec Mode to inspect properties, measure distances, copy production-ready component CSS and JSX (Git Integration only), and view the product’s Style Guide and Documentation.

Pricing

Starts from $119 per month when paid annually.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Single source of truth: With UXPin Merge, you can import and use the same React components in the design process as devs use for the final product, effectively bridging the gap between designers and developers.
  • Real data: designers can incorporate actual product data using JSON, Google Sheets, or CSV. They can also capture user inputs using Variables and use that data to populate a profile account or provide a dynamic, personalized user experience.
  • Interactive prototyping: using React components for prototypes means designers can create interactive replicas indistinguishable from the final product.

Cons:

  • Limited to Javascript: UXPin Merge only works with Javascript libraries and frameworks. 
  • Technical setup: product teams will need technical assistance to make their component library’s repository compatible with Merge; however, UXPin has a boilerplate and offers technical support to make this easier. Designers can use the built-in libraries, including MUI, Material UI, Ant Design, and Fluent UI, which don’t need any configuration.

Storybook

logo storybook

StorybookJS is a UI development environment allowing devs to build components in isolation. Developers, designers, and other stakeholders can visualize different states of every UI element, creating a component-driven development environment. It supports various frameworks, including React.

While Storybook is excellent for internal prototyping and component-driven development, it lacks tools and features for user testing. A great workaround is using Merge’s Storybook Integration to import your organization’s Storybook projects for prototyping in UXPin.

Storybook and UXPin Merge combined effectively bridge the gap between designers and developers while creating a single source of truth across the organization.

Key features

  • Component Stories: Write Stories to display different states of your components.
  • Addon ecosystem: Extend Storybook’s capabilities with a robust ecosystem of plugins.
  • Component-driven development: Develop one UI element at a time, viewing all its properties, interactions, and variants.
  • Documentation: Auto-generate documentation based on your stories and components.
  • Automated testing: Run multiple tests before release to ensure components meet code syntax, design principles, accessibility, and other custom requirements.

Pricing

StorybookJS is open-source and free to use. However, some addons or integrations might have associated costs.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Framework agnostic: While prominent in the React community, it supports various Javascript frameworks.
  • Rich ecosystem: A wide variety of addons and integrations allow you to tailor Storybook to your needs.
  • Collaborative: Designers, developers, and stakeholders can collaborate, ensuring consistent UI/UX.

Cons:

  • Technical expertise: Storybook is a developer tool, meaning you must have programming and Javascript skills to use it.
  • Configuration: Depending on your project’s complexity, it may take time to set everything up correctly.
  • Learning curve: Requires understanding of component structure and the framework you’re working with.

Framer

framer

Framer is a no-code design tool for React websites and web apps. The platform’s latest AI feature lets you create responsive starter templates with a few keywords.

Key features

  • Code-backed design: Design with React components, streamlining the transition from prototype to development.
  • Figma plugin: convert Figma designs to HTML for use in Framer–you must still convert this HTML to React.
  • Code-like animations: add Javascript-like animations and effects without writing any code.
  • Production-ready code: developers can export code from Framer to build React websites and web applications.

Pricing

Starts from $5 per month per site (project) when paid annually.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Interactive design: Design with code components for realistic interactions.
  • No-code development: Create production-ready websites without writing any code.
  • Starter templates: Framer offers a vast library of website and landing page templates to get you started–some of these are third-party paid templates averaging $29-$99.

Cons: 

  • Cost: Framer is cost-effective for small projects, but its per-site pricing model gets expensive when running multiple sites. If you purchase starter templates, your costs increase.
  • Web-only: Framer is a no-code website design tool, limiting prototyping scope–i.e., unable to design cross-platform applications.
  • Can’t import components: Unlike UXPin Merge, you can’t import design systems or UI libraries.

React-Proto

react proto

React-proto is a prototyping tool designed specifically for React developers. It provides a visual interface for creating React components and their relationships. Developers can drag and drop UI elements to establish parent-child relationships between components, designating state location and prop relationships without writing any code.

Key features

  • Component tree visualization: Visualize your entire application’s structure and components’ relationships.
  • Interactivity: Interact with your prototype and see changes reflected in the visual tree.
  • State management: Designate locations for your state and understand the flow of data.
  • Code Export: Translate your visual design into functional React code to begin front-end development.

Pricing

React-proto is open-source and free to use.

Pros and cons

Pros:

  • Faster prototyping: React-proto’s drag-and-drop interface lets developers edit components and prototypes faster than writing code.
  • Cost-Effective: Being open-source, it’s a cost-friendly option for all developers and designers.
  • Code Generation: Translating design to code is straightforward, reducing the barrier between design and development.

Cons:

  • Requires technical skills: React-proto is not a designer-friendly tool. It requires technical skills, including in-depth React experience, to operate effectively.
  • Limited features: React-proto offers few features as an open-source tool and is unsuitable for user testing.
  • No support: React-proto does not offer support or onboarding outside of its Github community.

Prototype React Websites and Applications in UXPin Merge

While there are several great React prototyping tools, UXPin is the only platform offering a designer-friendly, familiar work environment. UXPin looks and feels like any other design tool but increases prototyping scope by enabling designers to prototype using code components, including React, Vue, Angular, and more.

Build production-ready layout with React components from Git repo, Storybook, or imported npm package. Assemble UI and increase your productivity. Discover UXPin Merge.

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React vs HTML – Can You Spot a Difference?

React vs HTML min

HTML is a markup language while React is a JavaScript library. Both are used in front-end development and you might have heard about them while designing websites or web apps. Without further ado, let’s see what’s the difference between HTML and React.

Key takeaways:

  • HTML is a markup language, while React is a JS library.
  • React is component-based, while HTML doesn’t support such a structure by default.
  • HTML can’t manage interactivity or states on its own; React can manage states.
  • HTML websites need full refresh, while React can update only elements that change.
  • React enables one-way data binding, while HTML doesn’t have any data binding by default.
  • HTML typically structures content for static websites. React builds dynamic app UIs.

Create React app design much faster with UXPin. Bring real React components to design and move them around to build an app layout that is 100% interactive. Discover UXPin Merge.

Design UI with code-backed components.

Use the same components in design as in development. Keep UI consistency at scale.

What is HTML?

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the fundamental programming language structure of the web. Every website you visit, whether or not it uses a front-end framework, comprises HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

HTML uses various tags to define elements such as headings, paragraphs, links, and media objects, allowing browsers to interpret and correctly interpret and display the content.

A basic understanding of HTML is vital for anyone involved in web design or development, as it’s the starting point for all websites and many web applications. 

What is React?

React (ReactJS) is an open-source JavaScript library developed by Facebook. Developers initially used React primarily for single-page applications, but it has evolved to support multi-page websites with SEO features.

Unlike HTML, which structures content, React allows developers to create reusable components. Each component in React has its own logic and controls its rendering. This rendering is crucial because it allows a single element to change while the rest of the page remains static and doesn’t have to reload.

For example, when you like a post on social media, only the thumbs-up or heart icons change. If the same page used HTML, CSS, and Javascript, the entire page would have to reload whenever you liked or interacted with content.

React also has many workflow benefits over traditional HTML, CSS, and Javascript code. The ability to break down complex UI into simpler components makes React highly popular among developers for its efficiency and flexibility.

Key Differences Between HTML and React

user bad good review satisfaction opinion

While you can build the same website or web application using either React or HTML, they often work together, with HTML structuring the content and React adding interactivity and a component-based architecture.

Therefore, it’s fair to say that HTML vs. React is a redundant comparison because these are two different front-end technologies with different applications which mostly complement each other.

This comparison examines what would happen if you built a website or web application using HTML or React.

  • Functionality: HTML structures content on the web, while React, a JavaScript library, creates dynamic and interactive user interfaces.
  • Component-based: React employs a component-based architecture. Each component represents a part of the UI and can be reused throughout the application, enhancing development efficiency and consistency. In contrast, HTML doesn’t inherently support a component structure.
  • Interactivity: HTML, on its own, can’t create dynamic content or manage application state. It needs JavaScript or similar languages to add interactivity to a webpage. As a JavaScript library, React creates interactive UIs and effectively manages the application state.
  • Rendering: Traditional HTML-based applications often require a full page refresh to implement view changes. React uses a Virtual DOM (Document Object Model) to update only the components that change, eliminating the need for a full page refresh and offering more efficient, smoother updates.
  • Data Binding: HTML lacks a built-in system for data binding. Changes in the UI, like user input, don’t automatically update the application data. React enables one-way data binding, allowing efficient updates to UI components without affecting underlying data.
  • Use Cases: HTML typically structures content for static websites. React builds dynamic and interactive UIs, making it ideal for complex single-page applications (SPAs) and mobile applications with React Native.

Is it Possible to Spot the Difference Between HTML and React?

It’s difficult to spot the difference between a React vs. an HTML website or web application. No matter what framework (Angular, Vue, etc.) you use, the browser must render HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

testing user behavior prototype interaction

Even websites like BuiltWith cannot be certain about a digital product’s tech stack without the developers explicitly sharing this information or publicizing the project’s repository (i.e., a public GitHub repo).

Deeper Dive into HTML

How HTML works

When a user requests a webpage, the browser fetches the HTML file from a server and interprets it to display the page’s structure and content. HTML uses a set of predefined HTML tags to define content types, such as <p> for paragraphs, <h1> to <h6> for headings, <a> for links, <div>, and <img> for images, to name a few.

HTML structure

HTML uses a tree-like structure, with the <html> tag as the root with the <head> and <body> tags acting as the two main branches.

The <head> tag houses metadata, stylesheets, and scripts for the page’s styling and functionality. The <body> tag contains all the visible content, such as text, images, and links. Within these main branches, other tags, known as child elements, define and structure the content.

Page loading

When a page loads, the browser reads the HTML from top to bottom. It interprets the tags to construct the Document Object Model (DOM), a representation of the page structure.

The browser then displays the content according to the DOM. If the HTML includes links to CSS stylesheets or JavaScript files, the browser fetches and applies these, which can affect how the content looks (CSS) or behaves (JavaScript).

HTML’s structure makes it easy for browsers to interpret and for developers to understand and manipulate. It’s a fundamental building block of the web, providing the foundation upon which styles (CSS) and interactivity (JavaScript or libraries/frameworks like React) are added.

Deeper Dive into React

How React works

React creates a virtual representation of the DOM (the Virtual DOM), which it uses to improve performance.

When a user interacts with the application, instead of updating the entire DOM (which can be slow), React only updates the parts of the Virtual DOM where the state has changed. It then reconciles the Virtual DOM with the actual DOM in the most efficient way possible, updating only the changed parts in the actual DOM. This process is known as “diffing.”

React structure

React organizes code into components, reusable pieces of code that return JSX. These components can be as simple as a button or as complex as an entire page template. 

Components can maintain their own state (data that can change over time), receive data from parent components via props, and pass data to child components. This data flow establishes a clear and predictable coding structure.

Page loading

When a React application loads, it initializes the components and renders the JSX to the actual DOM using the ReactDOM library. During this process, it also sets up event listeners for user interactions.

When a user interacts with the application (e.g., clicks a button), this may trigger state changes in one or more components. React then updates the Virtual DOM to reflect these state changes and efficiently updates the actual DOM to match.

React’s structure and approach to DOM manipulation make it excellent for building complex, interactive web applications that must be fast and responsive. While the learning curve can be steeper than plain HTML, the performance and code organization benefits are substantial.

Why Developers Choose HTML vs. React

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Why do developers choose HTML?

Even though HTML may seem more straightforward and less powerful than React, it still has a crucial role in web development. Here’s why:

  • Fundamental and universal: HTML is the foundational language of the web. Every browser can interpret HTML, making it universally recognized and supported.
  • Perfect for static content: HTML is a straightforward and efficient choice when building a website with mostly static content.
  • Easy to learn: HTML is one of the easiest languages for beginners. It’s an excellent starting point for anyone interested in web development.
  • SEO friendly: Search engines can easily crawl and understand HTML, making it favorable for SEO.

For example, HTML is perfect for a business that wants a simple website to showcase its products and services. It’s also an excellent option for beginners learning about web development.

Why do developers choose React?

React offers several features that make it a preferred choice for many developers:

  • Component-based architecture: React’s component-based approach promotes reusability and consistency across the application, making development more efficient.
  • Efficient updates: React uses a Virtual DOM to only update parts of the page that need to change, making it highly performant, especially for complex applications.
  • Advanced JavaScript: React utilizes advanced JavaScript features and concepts, giving React developers more power and flexibility.
  • Strong community and ecosystem: React has a large and active community, which means plenty of resources for learning and troubleshooting, as well as a rich ecosystem of libraries and tools.

For example, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp use React for their complex, highly interactive UIs. Startups and tech companies also favor React for its efficiency, scalability, and productivity. Organizations also use React to build design systems due to the component-based nature of the front-end library.

HTML or React: which one should you choose?

Choosing between HTML and React depends on your project’s needs:

  • For static websites: HTML is often the preferred choice for building a simple, mostly static website.
  • For dynamic, complex applications: React is a far better option to HTML for building complex, highly interactive web applications.

HTML vs. React Impact on User Experience

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Performance

HTML-based websites generally load quickly due to their static nature. However, they might be slower to navigate if each user interaction requires a new page to load.

Conversely, React’s ability to update only the components that change leads to smoother and faster interactions, providing a more fluid experience for users, especially in complex applications.

Interactivity

HTML alone isn’t capable of creating dynamic, interactive user experiences. It requires JavaScript or similar languages to add interactive elements. 

Being a JavaScript library, React excels at building dynamic and interactive UIs that can respond instantaneously to user input. This interactivity can lead to a more engaging, app-like user experience.

Consistency

With React’s component-based architecture, developers can ensure consistent implementation of UI elements across an application. 

This uniformity promotes a consistent look and feel, which is critical to a good user experience. With HTML, this would require careful manual coding to ensure consistency.

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Developers often use React for building Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). PWAs can offer app-like experiences on the web, including offline functionality, which can significantly enhance user experience. While you can develop PWAs using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the process is more complex and time-consuming.

SEO and initial load time

HTML is straightforward for search engines to crawl and index, which can lead to better SEO. Also, an HTML page can start rendering immediately after the initial HTML file is loaded. 

In contrast, a React application generally needs to load the entire JavaScript bundle before it can start rendering. This rendering can lead to longer initial load times, impacting the user experience and SEO. However, techniques like Server-Side Rendering (SSR) and Next.js can help address these issues in React applications.

Building Interactive Prototypes in UXPin With Merge

UXPin’s Merge technology enables product teams to import UI components from a repository to build fully functioning interactive prototypes in UXPin’s design canvas. 

Design teams use the same UI elements for prototyping as engineers use to develop the final product, creating a single source of truth between design and development.

With Merge, designers don’t have to learn React to create React applications. They simply drag and drop components to build interactive prototypes. These advanced prototypes enhance testing, giving design teams meaningful, actionable results to iterate and refine.

Ready to join the code-to-design revolution? Visit our Merge page for more details and how to request access.

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