Getting Started with Front-End Development

You find multiple Youtube videos that show you great implementations of React and JavaScript but without explaining how or why we actually use them. For a person starting out, this may seem very putting off. So here is what we at BugBase feel about front-end development and its newest developments to kickstart your journey in front-end development!

A front-end web developer is responsible for applying interactive and visual design principles on websites and web applications for a positive and cohesive user experience. These developers use HTML, CSS, and other design tools to achieve responsive designs. UI, UX, and front-end developers are often assisted by back-end web developers, who are responsible for server-side application integration and logic.

Their primary goals are to raise user satisfaction, decrease user churn, and ensure user-based company goals are reached. Such goals might include increasing newsletter sign-ups, improving sales conversions, or identifying and removing pain points within an app.

But what exactly is UI/UX?

User-experience (UX) is a multidisciplinary field, the objective of which is to shape the entire experience of using a product. Hence, user experience. The user experience is a combination of usability, usefulness, visual communication and design.

As a UX designer you need competence in usability and usability testing, interaction design, information architecture, marketing, business analysis, and applied cognitive psychology. You need to be able to evaluate and know how to measure the quality of visual design, but you do not need to be a graphic designer.

User-interface (UI) design is the design of any interface between people and electronic or computer systems. A lot of that work is done on Web sites and Web and mobile applications, but UI design is not Web design. A competent UI designer applies skills in usability, ergonomics, and accessibility to craft user interfaces that not only look good but meet objective and emotional criteria for good user interfaces, which depend on exactly what kind of interface it is.

There’s a massive difference between the interface to a critical-care medical system and a consumer app that orders a taxi. A good Front-End dev can apply skills and competencies to create the optimal interface to both.

Importance of a front-end dev:

• Multiple devices have varying configurations and websites need to provide functionality in all of them i.e. A phone, laptop, smart watch etc
• Effective connection and integration with the backend to ensure proper functionality of the website
• Drastically improves the usability of the website and the user experience in general to help increase hits on the website.

Are Website Builders good enough?

Now here is the most common question all new-comers ask: why need front-end dev when you can use Wix and Wordpress?

With the rise of personal blogs and various other internet-hobbies across the world, quick and easy website building tools such as Wix or Wordpress have gained unimaginable traction. But what do we think?

• A simple requirement such as a blog or a personal journal which doesn’t include much user input is perfect for implementation using Wix and Wordpress.
• The user can create a website without worrying about its code and get on with whatever they want to do.
• However if you are looking to expand the digital footprint of a company or business or have a good back-end with a scalable structure, then these platforms are a complete no-fly zone.

Here is why :

1. You have no control over the website in general related to its functionality and workflow.
2. If you want the website to be hosted on a server that you control, then these platforms wouldn’t accommodate that
3. While small customisations in design are possible, major revamps are not supported meaning that you don’t have control over the design element to optimise it for your users
4. SEO implementations on website builders are not always what you as an organisation want. This means negative footfall on your website is a possibility
5. You use premade plugins on your website meaning that the customizability drastically decreases.

We at BugBase believe that using website builders has one major issue that isn’t highlighted much in the public sphere, also being the reason why our platform is completely designed from scratch! It’s the security of the website.

While website builders promise quick implementation, they often lack the basis for protecting the data that they handle. The plugins are made excluding this aspect. For you to build on it while making the website is impossible in these website builders. Thus designing a website from scratch accommodates this fact and of course we at BugBase are very particular about protecting user data.

Where do you start?

Well firstly, front-end development is not very coding or logic intensive. It is more focused on user experience and functionality of the website as well as data handling and transfer. In it’s bare bones, there are 2 main forms of website development :

• Single Page Application (SPA) : It’s made using softwares like React where the HTML of all the individual pages are in one file and the JavaScript controls what loads when. They are usually slow on the first load but provide great reactiveness post that. Websites like Facebook ,Github and Gmail and BugBase are SPA’s.
• Multi Page Applications (MPA) : It’s the classical form of developing websites where multiple pages have individual HTML and CSS files which are all loaded and combined via a carrying page/landing page. While they may be a bit more complex to implement, MPA’s provide great SEO. However the page reloads on every request putting load on the server.

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BugBase is India’s first consolidated platform for companies to host crowdsourced bug bounty programs that can be reached out to by ethical hackers and develop a security enthusiasts community all over the country.

Our website: https://bugbase.in/