Do Frameworks Work?
06 Oct 2017
What's the point of Semantic UI?
A style of a website either catches our attention or drives us away from a website. So why do some websites have such poor styling? We may never know, but Semantic UI makes it easy for software developers to style websites without the use of raw HTML and CSS. The problem with using just raw HTML and CSS is that it can require typing out more code and the results aren't the greatest. With a UI framework such as Semantic UI, software developers are able to easily style websites all by defining classes to different properties and doing it concisely.
Experience
Personally, I have never experienced other UI frameworks but I do praise Semantic UI for their easy implementation. The main thing that stood out that made Semantic UI so easy was their ability to use normal language when declaring what users want. And that is so simple, there aren’t any loops or turns, you get exactly what you ask for. If you wanted a blue button, all you need to do is make a button with a class called “UI blue button” and Voilà, you got yourself a blue button. Another example would be making a top menu bar, all the user needs to do is create a div with a “UI menu” class.
But what about styling the div you may ask? Well, users just need to type it in their class implementation. For example, need a borderless inverted menu? Just type in the class, “ui borderless inverted menu”, no CSS or HTML styling needed. Things such as containers and grids will also display flawlessly on any webpage without the need to do too much styling.
Learning Curve
Although implementation may sound easy, learning Semantic UI will take quite a while. The UI consists of 15 elements and along with those elements comes with a list of variations. In total, it took me 4 hours in order to learn the framework. It may take some time getting used to declaring the right elements, but in the end, it will be all worth it. Along the way, the Semantic UI website will be a great tool when stuck. In the end, while users may experience bumps along their journey of using Semantic UI, the rewards at the end of the experience will be so satisfying, because now they’ll be one step closer in perfecting the design of a webpage.