As web developers, we often struggle with designing the user interface for the apps we build. Whether it's spending too much time trying to come up with a button design or figuring out how to add a hover effect, the design process can be challenging. Here are four tools that every frontend developer should consider adding to their projects.
- CSSFX
"CSSFX is an incredible tool that enables you to incorporate pre-made CSS animations into your project. The animations are straightforward to use and include impressive loaders and hover transitions, which give frontend designers the ability to enhance the look and feel of their projects."
Link: https://cssfx.netlify.app/
2. Aceternity UI
Aceternity UI is a fantastic UI component library that allows you to easily incorporate pre-built components into your Next.js/React application. It goes beyond basic elements like inputs, text areas, buttons, labels, and accordions. What makes it stand out for me is that it also offers a sleek MacBook scroll effect commonly seen on popular SaaS websites.
3. HeroIcons
What is a website without some fascinating icons right? I’ve grown to love hero icons for their simplicity, and quality in icons. If you don’t know what hero icons are, it’s a simple SVG icon you can add to your project. They also have support for Figma, which makes it even more interesting to try out. There are other amazing icon libraries like the old but still amazing font-awesome, we also got Lucide icons, iconer, and so on.
Link: https://heroicons.com/
4. Greenstock Animation Platform (GSAP)
GSAP is an amazing and powerful library for animations. GSAP is a widely used JavaScript library that enables front-end devs to create high-performance animations for web applications. As a front-end developer animations are very crucial for how we communicate with our users. GSAP enables us as front-end devs to create thoughtful animations such as loading, error messages, and making interactions feel more intuitive and responsive.
Link: https://gsap.com/
These tools have helped me significantly as a web developer, enabling me to achieve my goals much faster. Integrating these tools into your project can keep you ahead in the design game in 2024.