Frameworks: the bones of any good-looking website
22 Feb 2024
Web building blues
Out of all the coding skills that I have in my toolset, User Interface (UI) design is one of weakest skills I currently possess. My aptitude for designing interfaces has never been something that I worked on since I was more focused on the programming side of computer science, and it had been years since I’ve tried to make a website that isn’t just a few columns and rows of text with some pretty pictures for added flavor, and it was all in CSS. But now that I’ve used this Bootstrap 5 framework, I’ve come to realize that while I am unsuited towards creating websites and using UI frameworks, I can see why people use these UI frameworks for making websites.
A great and powerful toolset for making websites…
My introduction to UI frameworks was this week with Bootstrap 5. Initially, I had been mainly using the basic tools and functions that were included in HTML and CSS by default which, while powerful enough to build the websites I wanted, was limited in terms of making my website aesthetically pleasing. With Bootstrap 5, I was able to witness the power of UI frameworks in terms of designing websites that are more visually appealing. Allowing for the creation of aligned images, functional navbars that were also pleasing to look at, and many other functionalities were the strengths of Bootstrap 5. Trying to do the same with just HTML and CSS proved to be a very challenging affair, which further proved how useful UI frameworks can be.
…But mainly for the experienced
However, I’m not great at designing websites at all. Most of the websites I’ve designed were very basic and barebone because of that, and while UI frameworks such as Bootstrap 5 do provide a lot of tools to create stunning websites, they’re still just tools. Bootstrap 5 was frustrating to work with as it required a great deal of knowledge in building websites to be able to make good use of it, something that I didn’t have much of. Plenty of times, I felt discouraged and frustrated working with Bootstrap 5 as I shifted back and forth between documentation and tutorial videos just to center an image or make a navbar function at a basic level.
A framework, but not for me
As much as I was frustrated with Bootstrap 5, it did open my eyes to UI frameworks and the pivotal role they play in making good websites. UI frameworks provide plenty of tools that can allow someone to make a top-notch website worthy of being on the first page of a Google search, but one must be very familiar with building websites to make the most of these tools, and I’m just not one of those people.