6 popular UI frameworks to build responsive websites

In July 2017, the journalists of te-st.ru explained in details such topics as User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI). In this article, we want to tell you about the popular UI frameworks you case use to create a comprehensive and responsive UI.

Experts recommended what frameworks should be used by beginners and professionals, defined their advantages and disadvantages.

A framework is a set of tools, libraries and ready modules that can be used by a web programmer during the website development. “Website built upon the frameworks have more accessibility, better responsiveness and more compliance. The develop and enhance the web.”

Frameworks advantages

1. They simplify and accelerate the development process. Frameworks save your time and allow you to avoid routine and repeating actions. “A developer does not have to reinvent the vehicle and waste the time on writing the code which is already stored in the framework. They just take the required components and build the website using the component approach.”

“Frameworks’ components are built in such a way you do not have to think about their compatibility. It means that everything should smoothly and bugless by default.”

2. They include almost everything needed for the development process. From a simple CSS style of texts by adding class and even to modal window JavaScript-components, tables, sliders.

3. They allow you to create responsive websites. Websites adapt to different screen resolutions: laptops, tablets, smartphones. “Just imagine that in order to make a website responsive, you just need to set the following classes (described in the official framework documentation) to the layout blocks.”

4. It becomes easy to understand how to work with the unknown website. “In case the website is developed by several coders or you the website of another developer, and the project uses a framework, then it will be much easier to understand how to modify and add anything on it.”

Bootstrap

An example of the website built with Bootstrap.

Bootstrap is the most popular UI framework in the world. At the moment, there are two versions: 3.3.7 and v4.0.0-alpha.6. In case you need to support Internet Explorer below 9 and lower, it is better to use Bootstrap 3.3.7. Moreover, the support for Bootstrap 3 has been suspended.

Bootstrap allows you to build an adaptive grid system, including HTML and CSS templates for typography, buttons, forms, tables, navigation menu and other elements. Furthermore, there are such javascript components as modal windows, dropdowns, tooltips, accordions, carousels.

“You can find many plugins and layouts for Bootstrap around the web. It means that you will find any solution that is not available out-of-the-box with any efforts. ”

Bootstrap has detailed documentation, thus it is a perfect option both for beginners and professional developers.

The framework also has good support for accessibility standards for people with disabilities.

Bootstrap official website.

Bulma

An example of Bulma framework elements. Bulma.io website screenshot.

This framework is not inferior to Bootstrap. However, the only drawback is that there is no JS in Bulma. “For this reason, the functionality of several components such as opening modal windows must be implemented independently”, — поделился наблюдениями Таланцев.

Foundation

An example of the website built with Foundation.

Foundation, as well as Bootstrap, includes HTML, CSS, and Javascript templates. Moreover, it supports the graphics acceleration for more smooth animations.

Foundation, in comparison with Bootstrap, provides more options while choosing grid system.

«Alongside, Foundation development team worked with the leading experts to rewrite all the framework components in accordance with the strict accessibility standards.

Foundation has an extensive documentation, support, tutorials, numerous plugins. The only disadvantage is that the framework is more complicated for beginners in comparison with Bootstrap.

Foundation official website.

Semantic UI

The examples of pages built on Semantic UI. Semantic-ui.com screenshot.

This is a relatively young framework which supports almost all the modern browsers. Semantic UI contains a large number of components and can fully compete with Bootstrap.

Semantic UI website.

UIKit

UIKit is a modular framework in a style of Material Design (Android software and application design by Google). It seriously differ from Bootstrap and Foundation. Moreover, it includes more than 30 pretty flexible and adaptive components, including modal windows, dropdowns, parallax, etc.

“The framework components can be easily customized and allow you to easily create complicated interfaces.”

However, the experts state that it has not such big support around the web like Bootstrap and Foundation, so you will not find many materials on this topic.

Сайт UIKit.

Materialize

An example of the website built with Materialize.

This framework was developed by Google and stands for the most popular in the style of Material Design. As well as the previous ones, it gives you an opportunity to create responsive websites.

The framework developers divided the elements into two main groups: components and mobile. You can find many ready-made components in each group. The description of each component gives you clear information on when and hot to use this component. In addition to a large number of components, the framework supports a pleasant animation.

“The Materialize official documentation is quite comprehensive. You do not need to have deep knowledge in the development to use this framework.”

Materialize official website.

How to learn frameworks?

1. Learn the official framework documentation.

“What framework to choose fully depends on the taste and knowledge of a particular specialist and, of course, the project requirements. All the mentioned above frameworks are actively developed and maintained, and each of them can be perfectly used even on a small or large project. However, there is no ideal choice, as everything depends on your preferences and requirements to solve the specific tasks.”

2. Learn HTML and CSS basics. Once you have learned the basics, you can easily use any UI framework.