What Are UI Components? – Ultimate Guide

The internet has the availability of several applications and websites that we use for daily life tasks. These online utilities feature unique user interfaces that develop meaningful interactions between the user and the system. Meanwhile, the user interface has the availability of several UI components that makes the software more intuitive. This article discusses UI components in detail, alongside the best available UIKits.

What Are UI Components?

UI components, known as interface components, have immense importance in designing the visual layout of a website or an application. Apparently, there exist several visual elements like buttons, text fields, navigation bars, icons, alerts, symbols, and many others in the UI. With all these elements, a user interface develops by which an end-user interacts.

Meanwhile, the easier and more attractive a user interface is, the more user-friendly that application will be in reality. After all, UI components play a key role in setting up the display we see on our screens.

History of User Interface

The history of the user interface is a fascinating journey that summarizes the advancement of technology we use today. Command Line Interface (CLI) was the first user interface introduced in the mid-1960s. This revolution proceeded with the introduction of Graphical User Interface (GUI) embedded in Xerox PARC’s Alto computer in 1970. Meanwhile, Apple Macintosh came out in 1984 that transformed GUI.

Microsoft Windows was then launched in 1985, extending GUI-based computing to more audiences. Afterward, the web interface emerged in the 1990s, bringing tools like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more. Mobile interfaces, voice interfaces, AR, VR, and AI technology further transformed GUI that we see today. 

What Are UI Component Libraries

A UI component library is a set of tools, pre-built software systems, or code snippets that combine ready-made functionalities with building patterns or designs in an application. Meanwhile, these React UI components-based libraries help speed up software development. After all, this prevents you from coding the entire UI functionality from scratch.

Thus, a consistent UI layout with necessary functions and working procedures gets integrated within the applications. These UI frameworks are reusable, so developers can integrate them into applications with components like sliders, menus, buttons, forms, and much more.

When to Use UI Components? 

Regarding user interfaces of software applications, UI components play a key role in this process. After all, UI components determine how good or bad your application will appear in front of the end user. But when do you need to use UI components? Learn the situations by reading the following points:

1. Rapid Prototyping

If you’re developing software that demands urgent delivery, of course, you have to accelerate the prototyping process. In this regard, using UI components can ideally help you, as they can expedite the process. Meanwhile, rather than spending time coding different elements with custom styling, a better approach is to utilize UI components. Moreover, your time to complete the prototype will reduce, and hence software delivery time will also decrease.

2. Adding Consistent Scalability

While you’re coding UI from scratch, you may need to alter coding snippets in the future if you want the upgradation of functions. Meanwhile, this process can consume much time and effort. A better way is to use UI components for making modular or scalable applications. This is necessary for making instant modifications to the UI of your applications.

3. Teamwork Collaboration

With the help of UI components, design teams within the software development processes can effectively collaborate with useful and instant solutions. Subsequently, several UI components exist with common libraries. This way, design teams can share and collaborate on different UI elements used in the current project. Communication becomes easier; therefore, project development will become simplified and efficient while reducing delivery time.

4. Cross-platform Development

You need to develop applications for all major platforms like web, mobile, and desktop. Similarly, all these platforms would require adjustment in the UI layout due to different screen size compatibility. In this scenario, using UI components is ideal. After all, the Android UI components have libraries that are automatically optimized for cross-platforms. Hence, you don’t need to code in a custom way for all the platforms. 

ZEGOCLOUD UIKits

The internet has several ready-made UIKits to offer. However, the trusted and reliable solution is ZEGOCLOUD, which is an API/SDK for communication applications. Henceforth, by using ZEGOCLOUD, you can make custom applications for your business with personalized UI. Apparently, there are 20+ built-in UIKits with more than 50 components. Meanwhile, the UIKits are open source, offering various benefits like collaboration, community support, cost saving, and more.

With cross-platform support, you can conveniently make UI for web, desktop, and mobile platform applications. Generally, these UIKits have code snippets with dedicated UI components that allow developers to streamline their application development. After all, the developers don’t have to code UI components from scratch because ZEGOCLOUD UIKits will help save their valuable time with instant solutions. 

The best thing is there are early-stage testing tools available that may help in the efficient implementation and execution of your applications. There’s also a facility for in-app plugins that will make your application more functional in terms of the user interface.

Meanwhile, there’s an option to use UIKits for different frameworks, including iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, and more. In contrast, using these UIKits is very simple and easy, as everything is ready-made, and you just have to process the integrations that require no expert-level knowledge.

Conclusion 

Overall, UI components are the backbone of all the software and applications we use daily. Without UI, we cannot interact with digital utilities. Moreover, the UI components with built-in libraries are a great assistance in streamlining application development. In addition, this article discussed thorough details on what are UI components. Furthermore, you learned about ZEGOCLOUD, which offers the best UIKits for building communication applications with customized UI.