10 Best Practices for Frontend Web Development: A Guide for Beginners
Frontend web development refers to the part of web development that deals with the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) of a website. It involves designing and developing the visible parts of a website that users interact with. As a beginner in front-end web development, it is important to learn and follow some best practices to create efficient, user-friendly, and maintainable websites. In this article, we’ll discuss 10 best practices for frontend web development that every beginner should know.
1. Use Semantic HTML
Semantic HTML refers to the use of HTML markup to convey the meaning and structure of the content on a web page, rather than just the appearance. As a front-end developer, one should always use semantic HTML because when they do they can communicate with both humans as well as machines the structure of the content on the web page. Let me explain what I mean by that.
The above image illustrates, some of the semantic tags and their possible placement. It is not hard to understand what those tags contain within because they are very descriptive HTML tags. When websites are built in this manner, developers can easily understand the purpose and function of different sections of the website. This makes debugging, troubleshooting, and updating old codebase much easier and less time-consuming for the developers.
Wise, semantic HTML tells the role of the tag to search engines as well, and that information is important for search engine crawlers like Googlebot to better understand the contents, better index your pages and rank them in search results. Moreover, this not only helps with search engine optimization but also makes the web page more accessible to users with visual or cognitive impairments.
2. Keep it Simple
One of the biggest mistakes I see beginner front-end developers make is creating overly complex websites by using too many graphics, elements, and animations. This only leads to clutter and can negatively impact the user experience. Instead, I suggest keeping it simple. Focus on creating a design that is both usable and accessible. Trying to make your website over the top can result in a high bounce rate, which is never a good thing.
3. Use a Responsive Design
Today, people use different screen-sized devices to access websites. And as a front-end developer, you must create a website that adapts and responds to different screen sizes, resolutions, and devices, providing an optimal viewing experience for all users.
To achieve responsive design, there are different CSS properties such as CSS media queries, flex layout, grid layout, etc. Media queries allow developers to specify different styles for different screen sizes, while the flex layout helps to ensure that the layout of the website adjusts fluidly to fit the available screen space. Many many other CSS properties can help you achieve responsive design but discussing them would require a separate article.
4. Optimize Images
Using large images with high resolution can make a website look better, but it can also significantly slow down the website’s load time. To avoid this issue, it is highly recommended to use optimized images for the web. Optimized images have reduced file sizes without compromising quality, which can improve the overall performance of your website.
There are some cases where using large images with high resolution is necessary, such as in the case of banner images. Banner images are usually large and should be clear and crisp to make a good impression on visitors. However, using the same large, high-resolution image for smaller thumbnails is unnecessary and can negatively impact website performance. It’s best to use smaller, optimized images for thumbnails and other small images on your website.
5. Use CSS tools and frameworks
The use of CSS tools like Sass and Less provides features like variables, mixins, and functions that help developers to write more organized and maintainable CSS code which ultimately improves website performance, and reduces development time.
Similarly, we have Tailwind, a CSS framework that comes with a set of pre-designed CSS classes that can be used to style HTML elements without having to write custom CSS which helps developers in a lot of different ways for example you don’t have to waste your time storming your brain to come up with the appropriate class names for your HTML elements because you have pre-defined CSS classes provided by a tailwind. You can just use them as a class and stylize your website. Moreover, there are other different CSS tools and frameworks like Bootstrap, materialize, and styled-components (The styled component is only for React). You could use it to boost your productivity and save a significant amount of your time with the help of such tools
6. Comment Your Code
You may write very good code on a Friday, but when you come back on Monday, you might not understand your code, let alone what it does. This happens a lot and is very common, but don’t worry; you will eventually understand the code after you give it some time. However, it can consume your valuable time.
Instead what you can do is comment on your code to make it easier to understand and maintain not just for yourself but also for those who come after you and have to work on your code. your comment should be clear and descriptive that explain the purpose of each section of the code. It’s important to write comments that not only explain what the code does but also why it does what it does.
7. Use JavaScript Libraries and Frameworks
Javascript libraries and frameworks such as React, angular, Vue.js, etc are highly in demand as they allow developers to build complex and responsive web applications quickly and efficiently. Libraries such as React are compatible with multiple platforms that include desktop and mobile devices as well.
These Javascript libraries and frameworks are designed to be scalable, meaning you can use them to build larger and more complex applications like Facebook, Instagram, etc. They use the latest technology to ensure that the applications built with them are fast, efficient, and reliable.
8. Don’t jump to the frameworks/libraries
Due to all the hype going on about Javascript libraries and frameworks like React, Next.js beginners tend to jump into them right away. However, it’s important to focus on building a strong foundation in the language first as they are built on top of JavaScript.
As a beginner, it’s recommended to take a JavaScript course and strengthen your foundational knowledge before moving on to libraries and frameworks. Without a strong understanding of the fundamentals, learning these tools can become challenging and confusing.
9. Learn from others
The front-end community is bigger than ever and it will keep on growing. If you get stuck somewhere you can always turn to such communities such as stack overflow, front-end mentor, and respective discord channels and now you have Chat-GPT as well.
I highly recommend joining the Frontend Mentor community. It’s a platform where you can find many real front-end projects and hone your skills by solving real-world HTML, CSS, and JavaScript challenges while working on professional designs. After you complete a challenge, you can share it for feedback from over 590,886 developers who can review your code and give appropriate feedback. Feedback is essential to guide you in the right direction and grow as a developer.
Follow other popular developers on social media such as Linkedin, Twitter, youtube, etc. to get updated about the latest technologies so that you don’t get left behind. Keep reading blogs of other developers, attend conferences, and participate in online communities to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.
10. Keep Learning
And last but not least, keep learning and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies in frontend web development. The world of technology is constantly evolving, even right now it's changing. You as a developer, it's your responsibility to keep up with these changes. Keep learning and upgrading your skill every single day so that you stay ahead of the curve and maintain your competitiveness in the job market.
In conclusion, follow these 10 best practices, and they will help you create efficient, user-friendly, and maintainable websites as a beginner in front-end web development. Next time you code, remember to use semantic HTML, create your web app responsive as possible, keep it simple, use optimized images to minimize your website load time, learn and use CSS tools and frameworks, comment on your code, use javascript frameworks and libraries but don’t jump into them unless you have a solid foundation in the language first, learn from others and keep learning to be up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies.
Of course, there are other practices that you might want to follow to be a better developer like using web performance best practices, using version control, testing your code, etc. You’ll eventually come to know about them as you keep learning.
