What’s the first thing that catches your attention when you land on a new website? Is it how organised the website is? Do you look at the ease of navigation? Are you bothered by the page loading time? Or is it a culmination of all these pointers?
Nine out of ten times, it’s the latter. A website reflects a brand’s identity. It showcases the brand's credibility and determines the kind of journey you will have.
User experience (UX) and User interface (UI) are the two foundational pillars of a website’s appearance and functionality. When hiring a website designing company for your business’s website development, what are some of the factors worth highlighting?
We will discuss more on that in this detailed guide.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UI AND UX DESIGN FRAMEWORKS:
UI and UX represent two entirely different elements of your website design and development.
Let us give you a small and practical example to explain it using a car.
UI design framework will represent how good a car looks (from the inside and the outside). UX design framework will represent how good you feel driving the car.
That’s all there is to it when you think of UX vs. UI in website development. UI encompasses elements like blank space, typography, colour scheme, and the visual aspects of a website. On the other hand, UX focuses on the user's navigation and ease of use when they are browsing the website.
WHAT ARE THE TOP UI/UX FRAMEWORKS WORTH CONSIDERING?
When it comes to website development, there are a handful of UI/UX frameworks that fit effortlessly. For your convenience and reference, we will discuss the top 5 of the lot.
1. Bootstrap
This is a beginner-friendly framework that ensures the website is mobile-responsive. It is more of an open-sourced framework, one that’s backed with regular updates and versatile community support. The framework also supports a variety of pre-processors and languages, which add to the credibility.
2. Semantic UI
Although a fairly new type of UI/UX framework, Semantic UI has gained a massive following and popularity. Besides the small file size and responsiveness, the highlight is that installing this framework doesn’t cause a stutter in the website’s page-loading experience. Also, customisation is a breeze with this framework.
3. Materialise
If the name of this UI/UX framework wasn’t a giveaway, Materialise is like a never-ending maze with different types of buttons, navigational bars, icons, cards, CSS codes, and so much more. It is like Pandora’s box for website developers, and rightfully so.
4. Ant Design
If you use React JS as a website developer, Ant Design is a UI/UX framework you will benefit greatly from. Not only does it streamline designing and development, but the framework was also developed for React JS. Hence integration is a breeze. No longer will you have to worry about writing custom CSS codes while setting up the website.
5. UI Kit
UI Kit is the last one in the lot that deserves special mention. It is a versatile framework that fits into the use of every designer, irrespective of whether them being a beginner or a professional. It is integrated with several advanced features, including nestable and JS off-canvas bars, which make website customisations much more streamlined.
HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST UI/UX FRAMEWORK FOR A WEBSITE?
Now that you have a clear idea about the different UI/UX framework models, the next point of discussion is choosing the right one that fits the needs of the subjective website in question.
With multiple options, narrowing down the choice can take time and effort. Working with an experienced web design agency can get better clarity on the situation.
The following pointers can be a good place to start:
1. Skill Level
There are multiple types of UI/UX frameworks available. Some are beginner-friendly, and some are specially curated for advanced and highly experienced website developers.
While choosing a framework, your work puts your skillset in the foreground. There is no doubt that the advanced frameworks are feature-rich. But they are designed for higher skill levels.
Do you fit into that category? Designing a website isn’t just about including “cool animations” and “unique sliders”. Sometimes, it's better to keep things simple. There’s nothing wrong with starting with basic frameworks and working your way up.
2. Reliability
A website is a brand’s digital identity. It's where they showcase their products and services and generate a steady source of income.
As a website designer and developer, your objective is to create a fool-proof design that’s secure from cyber attacks and can hold its fort down despite the turbulences on the internet.
To do so, you need to integrate a UI/UX framework with a strong codebase. Not only do they optimise performance, but they also elevate the security optimisation of the website.
3. Appearance
Statistics suggest that a good website UI can raise a website’s conversion by 200%, and a good UX can raise the conversion by 400%.
4. Adaptability to Emerging Technology
Technology is continually evolving. So, it isn’t surprising that new programming trends will emerge in the upcoming years.
As a website designer, choosing an adaptable UI/UX framework is the need of the hour. Before choosing a framework, assess how quickly it can adapt to the changes, whether related to the web version or mobile development. If the framework has a delayed response, it's not worth the time.
CONCLUSION
There are no silver bullets when choosing a UI/UX framework design. Making a choice is challenging and is filled with multiple corner cases that the web designer has to navigate their design around. As a leading design agency, we can cater for all of your web solutions. Our team of enthusiastic and experienced website designers are on-par with the market trends and is here to elevate your website’s UI and UX game.
Step forward and take your first Stride with us!
For queries and further details, visit https://www.stridedesign.co.uk/contact-us.