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You Don’t Need a UI Framework

8 points by fagnerbrack 4y ago

MrJohz 4y ago
As an aside: it's probably worth noting for people who didn't read the article and are less familiar with the terminology: a UI framework is like Bootstrap or Material Design, and is broadly orthogonal to a web framework like React or Vue. You can use Bootstrap with or without React, and vice versa - this article is just making the claim that you don't need Bootstrap and its ilk, rather than the all frameworks are bad! I'm increasingly of this mindset the more I develop stuff for the web. UI frameworks claim to at least partially solve the need for a designer (or at least a front-end developer) by providing a consistent set of components that fit together and work together. Except every project I've inherited that uses them has ended up with a jumble of different styles and features as someone decides this style of textbox looks good there, and that style of button looks good there, and so on. Let alone the layout, which tends to be a case of "throw things at the wall until it looks good enough on all the screens I've tested". Essentially, the claim of UI frameworks seems to be: if you use this, you can skip, or at least significantly shorten, the visual design phase of your project. And in my experience, that claim has never been true. That phase is necessary to ensure that an application looks and feels consistent with each other. My projects have always looked better when I've sat down beforehand (ideally a real designer!) and sketched out outlines of every page, collected all the elements and organised their styles, created rules for any atoms, etc. Ideally, I've got a list of everything that I'll create, right down to an explicit list of every font and size combination that I'll need. But the irony is that once I've done all of this, I don't need a UI framework any more. Partly because it will be a pain to wrangle all of the explicit designs into the UI framework styling, which may be configurable, but rarely that configurable. But mainly because I've already got the consistent design that I wanted to get with the UI framework, so now it's not bringing anything to the table. If I just shape my designs into some components, I'll basically end up with my own UI framework, but specific to my application and therefore usually a lot simpler, with fewer knobs and dials to turn. In my experience, the value for UI frameworks is principally for people who absolutely don't want to do any design at all. They're basically a zero-code design solution, and like any zero-code solution, you're never going to get great results, but for personal stuff that you're maintaining alone, or for "MVP" style projects that just need to get out the door, there's some value in being able to get things done quickly. But if you're working on a more long-term project with other people, and you want it to look at least halfway professional, I don't think UI frameworks offer much help at all.

8 points by fagnerbrack 4y ago

As an aside: it's probably worth noting for people who didn't read the article and are less familiar with the terminology: a UI framework is like Bootstrap or Material Design, and is broadly orthogonal to a web framework like React or Vue. You can use Bootstrap with or without React, and vice versa - this article is just making the claim that you don't need Bootstrap and its ilk, rather than the all frameworks are bad! I'm increasingly of this mindset the more I develop stuff for the web. UI frameworks claim to at least partially solve the need for a designer (or at least a front-end developer) by providing a consistent set of components that fit together and work together. Except every project I've inherited that uses them has ended up with a jumble of different styles and features as someone decides this style of textbox looks good there, and that style of button looks good there, and so on. Let alone the layout, which tends to be a case of "throw things at the wall until it looks good enough on all the screens I've tested". Essentially, the claim of UI frameworks seems to be: if you use this, you can skip, or at least significantly shorten, the visual design phase of your project. And in my experience, that claim has never been true. That phase is necessary to ensure that an application looks and feels consistent with each other. My projects have always looked better when I've sat down beforehand (ideally a real designer!) and sketched out outlines of every page, collected all the elements and organised their styles, created rules for any atoms, etc. Ideally, I've got a list of everything that I'll create, right down to an explicit list of every font and size combination that I'll need. But the irony is that once I've done all of this, I don't need a UI framework any more. Partly because it will be a pain to wrangle all of the explicit designs into the UI framework styling, which may be configurable, but rarely that configurable. But mainly because I've already got the consistent design that I wanted to get with the UI framework, so now it's not bringing anything to the table. If I just shape my designs into some components, I'll basically end up with my own UI framework, but specific to my application and therefore usually a lot simpler, with fewer knobs and dials to turn. In my experience, the value for UI frameworks is principally for people who absolutely don't want to do any design at all. They're basically a zero-code design solution, and like any zero-code solution, you're never going to get great results, but for personal stuff that you're maintaining alone, or for "MVP" style projects that just need to get out the door, there's some value in being able to get things done quickly. But if you're working on a more long-term project with other people, and you want it to look at least halfway professional, I don't think UI frameworks offer much help at all.