Modernizing a jQuery frontend with React

There are lots of articles out there about React, but not so many that share a firsthand experience of modernizing a large scale application from jQuery to React. This series of posts tells the story of our experience at Karify with making this transition from the perspective of design and development.

To provide some context, Karify is a small Dutch company which creates software in the field of mental health. We have a relatively big web application running for seven years now with around 75000 users. Our application includes features such as messaging, a media library, user management, assignments (ex: mood charts or meditation assignments) among other more specific features. When it comes to development we follow agile methodologies, we care a lot about code quality and we are always looking for ways to improve. This means that stand-ups, code reviews, unit testing and user testing are part of our day-to-day workflow. If you are interested and want to know more about us, visit our website here.

In 2016 we decided to modernize our frontend for the following reasons:

• Our frontend was built for desktop screens but users were starting to use our application on tablets and smartphones.
• The user experience in desktop screens needed some improvements since our designer was involved only in a later…