The responsive web design of applications and scalability are critical for many businesses. This is how a web page handles many users and traffic volumes. Around 53% of app users stop launching an app if it takes them more than three seconds to browse. To avoid user shortage and business collapse, businesses turn to agencies that use React for front-end development.
React front-end development helps build fast and efficient web applications. This is why brands like Facebook or Instagram (among many others) chose this technology to develop their platforms and grow.
This article will serve as a guide for those looking to discover more about the front-end with React. Join us if you are among them.
What Is Front-End Development?
Front-end web development (aka frontend) is the development of the UI/user interface side of an app or website. Simply put, this is everything a user faces or sees when interacting with a web page, including menu sections, buttons, texts, colors, and images.
Among the best development languages for the UI part are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript:
- HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, is used in web development to manage a website’s content. This programming tool allows developers to determine a website’s structure, which will appear on a user’s screen every time they visit it. The defined structure encompasses texts, links, and paragraphs.
- CSS or Cascading Style Sheets is a style rather than a programming language. While HTML is about the content, CSS is about style. After content is prepared and complex HTML is written, CSS grants developers the right to provide visual impacts and alter created elements to give them fonts. Eventually, this adds design to a page.
- JavaScript is a coding language for software development that enhances HTML with interactive elements, animation, and visual effects. With JS, website developers can integrate the ability to offer immediate feedback to users (for instance, baskets and shopping carts).
Front-end development requires plenty of competencies and skills from developers. The most skillful front-end engineers do more than apply correct languages. They also have design skills and ensure that a web page meets the criteria for performance, usability, and accessibility.
What Is React?
But let’s get back to React for front-end. This is a UI development library based on JavaScript. Front-end development with React first became known back in 2013. For over a decade now, React front-end development has been the niche leader and a top library for web design and creation.
Of course, compared to other computer programming languages, React is relatively young. But its features make it a number-one choice among the world’s most known platforms.
Features of React for Front-End Development
For starters, React’s features are outstanding compared to other technologies. Its feature set is what makes it the most widely adopted library.
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JS + HTML = JSX
This is a syntactic extension for JS that is applied to the description of how UI should look and feel. It’s neither HTML nor string. Using JSX, developers are allowed to write HTML-based structures in the same file where the JS code remains.
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Data Binding
When developers choose to build the front-end with React, React utilizes 1-way data binding or unidirectional binding. This means that all activities remain quick and modular. Plus, unidirectional binding is common to parent and child components altogether.
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Virtual DOM
This is the light version of the Real Document Object Model created for React. The manipulation of the Real DOM is slower. When an object’s state changes, the light version (virtual) can update a single object of the real DOM instead of updating all the objects.
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Architecture
MVC architecture splits an application into three elements: Model, View, and Controller. The Model is the reflection of the logic. The View is accountable for how an app feels and looks; it’s used for the User Interface logic. The Controller is another interface between the View and the Model.
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Debugging
This is another great feature of front-end development with React. Applications built on this technology are very straightforward, making them easy to test. Plus, there are lots of extensions specially developed to simplify and expedite React debugging.
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Extensions
Is React a front-end framework, and that’s it? No, it’s not. The library also includes numerous extensions coating the entire React front-end architecture diagram. This means it can also help build mobile apps and ensure server-side rendering.
Why Is React So Popular?
It’s all thanks to the advantages of React. And though there are plenty of frameworks and libraries for front-end, the advantages of front-end on React are numerous. Here is the top list:
- React is simple to read and use
- React is easy to maintain
- React is robust, dynamic, interactive
- React is SEO-friendly
- React is simple to test
- React Native (read about the difference here) changes mobile app development
Let’s talk in detail.
React is Simple to Read and Use
What is React good for? If we were to explain in one phrase, it’d be: React is simple to use and read. This benefit makes the library the most preferable choice among developers. The library’s ease of understanding and implementation allows businesses to develop their web apps a lot faster than with other less popular options.
This is also one reason why the number of React developers is growing. According to the data, in 2022, there were around 29 million React developers in the world. And the prediction is that it’ll keep growing immensely.
React is Easy to Maintain
This means that the code written in React has numerous reusable components — elements of code that software engineers can use repetitively across one app or diverse projects. The simplest examples of such components are dropdown menus, buttons, and other wrapper components. As a library, React is very flexible, which explains why developers use React for the front-end.
React is Robust, Dynamic, Interactive
The React front-end framework has and does practically everything that software engineers require. On the one hand, React is very efficient when it comes to coding dynamic and interactive apps. On the other hand, React doesn’t make a developer compromise on infrastructure, whether it’s about a mobile app, a web platform, or an IoT platform.
React is SEO-Friendly
This is a win-win benefit for developers and business owners. React leverages all the advantages of Search Engine Optimization. When using React to develop UI, a company cuts the time required for page load (aka rendering speed).
What does the library do? It lets developers use similar code for the server and UI sides on a single app. A website on React has a speed advantage and becomes more appealing to visitors, improving its user experience. Eventually, their website ranks high in Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines.
React is Simple to Test
Testing React-based applications is convenient and simple. This is because the Views in React are considered to be a certain state’s functions. This allows programmers coding in React to work alongside quality assurance engineers and maneuver across React View’s states. Thus, a team manages code outputs as well as its events, functions, and actions — anything to understand whether the app functions according to expectations or not.
React Native Changes Mobile App Development
Cross-platform mobile app development was considered a nightmare before React Native came into play. Whenever a business needed its mobile application on both Android and iOS, it was expected to have a profound budget, an extensive timeline, and a large team of developers able to code in different programming languages.
Since React Native, things have changed dramatically. Today, programmers can develop high-quality apps with powerful features in a single codebase. Eventually, this made the development of apps for both Android and iOS phones cheaper and smoother.
What Is React Used For?
What is React front-end development used for? Due to its exceptional features and characteristics, the list of applications is extensive. At LITSLINK, we have a large team of experienced React.js developers to build any of the React-based platforms from the list below:
- SPAs or Single Page Applications: for allowing software engineers to create complex UI and render systems with reusable code and components.
- Social Media Platforms: for ensuring real-time updates across SMM platforms, dynamic content, and higher engagement rates.
- Educational platforms: for e-learning applications with user-friendly and interactive UI and modern features like interactive lessons or quizzes.
- E-commerce applications: for SEO-friendly applications in the e-commerce sector to change the shopping experience.
- Mobile applications (React Native): for building native apps for iOS and Android with a single JS code that can be reused in different features.
- Data visualization apps and dashboards: for ensuring a component-rich architecture and very possibilities for dynamic content updates.
- Enterprise apps: for scalable, maintainable, and robust ERP and CRM systems.
- CMS or Content Management Systems: for creating an extendible and flexible Content Management System with augmented editorial experience.
- IoT apps: for creating UI for dashboards and device control panels, ensuring interaction and connection among diverse hardware
- Real-time collaboration instruments: for mirroring modifications on online editors and chat apps.
There are also many other use cases. The main point is that React technologies do not stand still. They keep evolving, which means that the list will only keep growing.
React Front-End Examples
Front-end web development with React has many benefits. If small- to medium-sized businesses are looking for opportunities to build an app on React or React Native, they should know that many of the world’s most known and most expensive brands have already done so. Among the brightest examples are:
- Netflix
- Airbnb
- Dropbox
- Discord
- The New York Times
At this rate, React will soon take over the whole Internet.
Facebook was the first major platform built on React.js. This is the most vivid example of how powerful and flawless a library can be. With React, this popular social media platform can offer a whole set of real-time features, including status updates, comments, and likes. The user experience is seamless and dynamic. React also ensures the modular nature of the platform. This means the library helps Facebook quickly adapt to the requirements of active users (2.8 billion every month).
If you’ve used Instagram at least once, you surely noticed the array of interactive elements: direct messages, stories, reels, and images. They all are possible thanks to React. Moreover, React takes full responsibility for the platform’s user-friendly interface and elegance, features like Google Maps API, geolocations, and search engines.
Netflix
One of this century’s most powerful streaming platforms is built on React and keeps growing thanks to the framework’s technology. After Facebook and Instagram, it wasn’t a tough choice for Netflix to choose what technology to place at its core. An unbelievably sleek design and intuitive interface of the platform, as well as speed, modularity, and performance, are possible thanks to React.js.
Airbnb
Airbnb is an example of how the framework can transform complex data into a friendly, intuitive, and helpful application. React components (interactive maps, listings, booking options) are orchestrated to work in unison and create a helpful user journey from property browsing to payment and booking.
Dropbox
They were initially searching for a stack of technologies that could guarantee a perfect user experience. They chose React because of its loading speed and small file size. Another reason was that React provided a few online backup solutions alongside cloud-based storage — the two features that were a must for Dropbox.
Discord
Platform creators wanted to build a platform that would allow gamers to interact. They were looking for a framework that could provide an exceptional UI development capacity. That was possible only with React. Today, 98% of the platform’s code is React-based.
The New York Times
Once the creators had an idea to build an interactive web application to publish news and more, they used React.js. They knew that UX was a major factor in driving reader loyalty, so they chose React as the only framework capable of creating fantastic UX.
Conclusion
In part, the reason behind React winning the world is its syntax, which is declarative and simple. This is why developers choose JS and React among the top programming languages. With this framework, software engineers can quickly write components using familiar and understandable syntax that is very much like HTML. However, React’s popularity is partly due to using the virtual Document Object Model instead of manipulating the browser’s Document Object Model. Together, this guarantees fast development and faster rendering times. Thus, the overall app performance is improved.
If you’re looking for a team to help you develop a fast, intuitive, and interactive web app to run your business, you’ve come to the right place. Don’t hesitate to leave a message, and we’ll get back to you with replies.
