Harris KhanDeveloping a web app is not an easy thing. For junior developers, a new project is always a challenge. In this overview, we will discuss the most common mistakes developers make while working on their JS UI. Both juniors and seniors will find some useful recommendations and helpful tools.
1. The more, the better
This is a common mistake of all students, not only those related to IT. When you don’t have a plan, a structure of how to learn, you dive into too many sources, trying to cover everything possible. The better way is to narrow yourself to the subject you want to study thoroughly right now. If you are at the beginning of your career, choose 1 programming language and study hard. If you are trying to find a framework for the UI, choose 3-5 solutions and test them carefully on the project you have. There is no need to look through 100 offered resources.
2. Planning too much or no plan at all
The absence of a plan is bad, as you don’t know where you are heading to. Planning too many details is a reverse side of that. You can’t predict what will happen every moment, so the plan will go wrong somewhere. Creating a UI presupposes the agreed functionality of three things: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You need a code to make your app work and design to make it look nice. A good idea is to allocate relatively equal time for all the parts of the development. Although it may seem that the most difficult thing is coding, unexpected issues may appear and you will get stuck with outlining the design for your UI.
3. Writing without reading
There is nothing worse for a new developer in a company than try reading someone else’s code. When you are the only person coding, it may seem to be understandable, but regular maintenance is a must. The code should be readable to others in case you hire a new employee to help you out. Besides, long and piled-up code spoils the general performance of the app. The functions stop working properly and the responsiveness of the UI suffers.
4. Ignoring debugging
Very often developers are so excited about their code that they forget to check and test it. Debugging is very important and the sooner you start, the better. You can do it with the tools built into the development environment, use online or cloud services, such as WebKit for instance.
5. Neglecting ready-made resources
It is good to know how to create components from scratch, but sometimes it is more reasonable to use the available ones. Fully-fledged frameworks and libraries were developed by teams of experts, tested, and updated. So why not trust reliable solutions and focus your efforts on some other issues demanding attention. Webix UI Library may be the option here. This library contains 100+ widgets, so there are definitely some solutions for your requirements. The Webix team has been carefully creating the widgets for more than 12 years already gradually building a dedicated following. Another solution worthy of attention is DHTMLX. They offer clear tools for common purposes, such as Gantt, Scheduler, Pivot, and so on.
6. Poor compatibility
People are more dependent on their smartphones today than ever before. In a couple of years, we will use only a smartphone to access the Internet. So any web application today should properly function on all the imaginable devices. And this should be kept in mind in the very beginning. Tools like Viewport can help in setting the responsive design.
Another compatibility issue is connected with browsers. Developers should make sure the performance is not disrupted by the choice of the browser. There are handy tools to cope with this issue as well, such as CrossBrowserTesting and BrowserStack.
7. Lack of input validation
Users are humans, they tend to make mistakes. Developers try to predict those mistakes. One of such may be filling the wrong fields with improper data. Here is where input validation should step in. It is a good UX practice, that also helps to prevent injection attacks, system compromises, and memory leakage. One of the helpful tools may be jsFormValidator.
8. Forgetting SEO
Often developers skip using alt attributes for the images on the site. This is a bad habit, as crawlers will consider them as decoration elements and ignore them. As a result, the images will not be reflected in the search. Checking internal and external broken links is another helpful tip. Check my links extension from Chrome can serve as an assistant.
9. Bad style
This is the responsibility of more of a designer. But it will significantly add to the opinion of you as a UI developer. Font size, colors, the background should fit. The text should be easy to read. Avoid too pretentious elements, and never use autoplay.
10. Risking your health
This one is an obvious thing, but developers tend to forget about the world around them while plunged into coding. Numb muscles, red eyes, and an empty stomach do not do good for your health. The quality of work will also be affected. The rule says 20% of effort gives 80% of the result. So make pauses, walk, drink water, and relax more.
Conclusion
In the overview, we have combined the typical mistakes, which are quite easy to avoid if to be careful and attentive. The worst mistake for a developer is to try creating the UI faster, cheaper, and with as few efforts as possible.
