If you’re learning UI/UX design, or a client creating a digital product like a website or an app, you should know what a UI kit is.
You’ll come across these two terms – User interface (UI) and user expereicne (UI) – when building your solution.
In simple words, UI includes things like buttons, menus, forms, typography, and other graphical elements that users interact with to perform tasks.
On the other hand, UX focuses on aspects like ease of use, efficiency, satisfaction, and emotional response of the user.
So, you might be wondering – what is a UI kit then? This is what we will cover here today.
What Is a UI Kit?
A user interface (UI) kit is a set of UI components like fonts, icons, design templates, and other crucial things that are reusable and easy to access. There are different types of UI kits available depending on the designer or the types of projects they handle.
From putting in simple design elements to handling complex components, UI kits can make the life of any designer easier.
Key Components of a UI Kit
Depending on your requirements, the components of UI kits can vary greatly. However, there are some key features usually seen in most UI kits. Some of them are:
1. Design templates and layouts
Wireframes act as starting points for designers based on what type of page they want to build with options for customization.
2. Buttons and icons
Premade buttons that are meant to be recognized as clickable to any eye and icons that are meant to convey the type of page and actions a corresponding button will convey.
3. Navigation channels
Navigation channels indicate how a user will get around a website or an app. A UI kit tries to make a design of it simple and intuitive. It includes tabs and navigation bars.
4. Brand design elements
These are design elements that represent a brand. It can be almost anything, from a simple shape or color to a complex mini-version of a company logo (often known as submarks). UI kits with brand design elements are usually custom-made.
5. Toggles
Clickable switches on an interface that help users switch between (usually) two options are known as toggles.
6. Avatars
Avatars are a visual and graphical representation of users that are meant to personalize user experience.
7. Typography
Fonts, font sizes, and styles that help with the consistency of a design
8. Color palettes
Colors and color schemes that match the “vibe” of a digital product
Other components include progress bars, effect styles, widgets, code components, etc.
UI Kit Categories
There are many UI kits available and all of them have various utilities. They can be categorized according to their structures and uses.
1. Device-based UI kits
a. Web-based UI kits
Web UI kits are optimized for websites and web apps, with a focus on components like navigation tabs and buttons.
b. Mobile-specific UI kits
These kits are optimized for mobile applications, with a specialty in touch-based controls and mobile-friendly navigation specified for iOS, Android, or any other platforms.
c. Device-specific UI kits
Along with mobile phones, these kits also concentrate on tablets and digital wearable devices like smartwatches and health monitoring devices. Their features take into account different sizes of screens and their interaction types like touch, voice, and gestures.
Framework-based UI kits
a. Web framework-based UI kits
Kits of this category are created based on commonly used web frameworks such as Tailwind CSS, Bootstrap, or Bulma. They will offer you templates that provide the best of the selected frameworks.
b. Material Design UI kits
These UI kits are tailor-made to adhere to the guidelines set by Google through Material Design, giving you not only a visually appealing toolkit but also making sure they are all optimized for Google’s principles.
c. E-commerce-focused UI kits
E-commerce UI kits are optimized for websites that specialize in selling products online. They are known for having a variety of designs of shopping carts, catalog layouts, payment interfaces, and many more specific elements.
d. Dashboard-focused UI kits
If you are creating websites or platforms that have analytics or dashboards meant to showcase different kinds of data, this is the category you are looking for. They provide designs for graphs, charts, and widgets that help visualize and keep track of data in many ways.
e. Wireframing and prototyping UI kits
As the name suggests, these UI kits help you design wireframes and prototypes and give quick access to basic UI elements that allow you to sketch your design ideas and potential user flow.
Benefits of UI Kits
1. Accelerated workflow
A UI kit makes it easier to put in design elements in a simple manner and makes it very convenient to make changes to them. You do not have to design anything remotely complex from the start.
This saves you time all around the creation process, which accelerates the workflow and allows projects to be completed in a shorter time.
2. Consistent design across a project
With reusable assets and consistent designs at hand, a good UI kit maintains a consistent look throughout a website or any digital or digital product. With buttons, icons, and other design elements that adhere to a design principle, your product will convey its unique flair.
3. User-centric design
As we know, UX focuses on ease of use from the perspective of the users, and UI kits play into this philosophy. They are made to be intuitive, with icons that are recognizable and menus that can be easily navigated. Using UI kits will keep user benefits at the forefront of your mind.
4. More focus on design
Not having to make everything means designers can prioritize what really matters, the design. They do not have to do repetitive work of creating something from the ground up, allowing them to spend more time brushing up the looks of the UI.
5. Adaptability based on projects
No matter what platform you want to create your product for, there is always a tool available that is built with that particular platform as its main one.
There are also UI kits meant to be multi-platform if you want your product to be compatible with a lot of platforms. Just make sure to test everything out to understand if they are compatible or not.
6. Easily adjustable
Making changes with UI kits is very easy and makes revisions of designs a breeze to do. With primary elements available at hand and easy ways of cutting and replacing things, it removes a lot of headaches for designers; especially if they notice errors or want to change things up at the later stages of development.
7. Save time and money
A suitable UI kit will save you time a lot of time and in turn a lot of money in the long run. Without a UI kit, you will spend a lot of time looking for assets or creating them.
Not only will those hours be saved if you use a UI kit, but you will also be able to deliver projects to clients in a shorter time. This allows you to differentiate yourself from the competition and brings you more gigs in the future.
Limitations of UI Kits
While a UI kit is an excellent tool to have in your arsenal, there are some limitations you should be wary of.
1. Multiple kits may be needed
If you are going to use existing UI kits, it might prove difficult to use one kit for all your necessities. Most designers who use pre-existing designs often resort to using 2 or 3 different UI kits based on their preferences and desired results.
For example, you may find the footer or header design from one kit favorable, and a drop-down menu option from another. This will make you combine the usage of the two for maximum satisfaction. No one tool can satisfy all your needs and tastes.
2. Platform compatibility
There is also the matter of compatibility of UI with specific platforms. Some UI kits are made with specific platforms in mind so they might cause problems when used for other platforms.
Make sure to test out everything for all your intended uses to avoid compatibility issues. This is a common issue where a lot of UI kits are made natively for iOS or Android devices.
3. Tunnel vision into a specific style
A lot of UI kits boast having everything one will need, with almost uncountable features. But they can distract you from making your projects similar to the theme of the kit itself.
This can also make you lean into one specific style a lot, which can make you work on projects with a bias towards that.
This can end up with a lot of your projects looking “similar” to each other, and ignoring the specific design requirements for them.
4. May need to create one from scratch
If you cannot find a UI kit that suits your or your client’s needs, you may have to build a UI kit for yourself. This nullifies one of the advantages of having a UI kit in the first place, which is not having one made for you beforehand.
It can be a difficult process to build a kit from the ground up, so it is optimal to have a list of projects lined up for it so that you can utilize it for a long time.
Our Recommended UI Kits
1. Material design
Material Design is a UI kit by Google with a wide range of components and designs available. The great thing about Material Design is that all of them were created with Google’s guidelines so you can be free of the headache of optimizing each of your design elements.
2. Bootstrap
Bootstrap is a free, open-source framework great for creating mobile interfaces. Just like any other great tool, it has a great number of pre-designed UI components like icons, typography, buttons, and many more.
3. iPhone iOS 16 UI kit
iPhone iOS 16 UI kit is a must-have if you are planning on designing things that are specifically for iOS devices. They have all the necessary design components needed that match the design language of the iOS environment. You can easily create the apps you want with this intuitive and easy-to-use tool kit.
4. Android 13
The Android 13 UI pack is a feature-rich resource for designers who specialize in Android apps. It has all the necessary pre-built components a designer may want that adhere to Android app design guidelines. No matter what type of app you are creating, Android 13 will have designs that will suit your specific needs.
5. Cabana for Figma
Cabana is a premium UI kit with a library of more than 1000 UI components and templates, all of which are specific to different industry standards. It is a great tool for creating simple mockups to complex designs in a very easy way.
Their kit for Framer starts at 99$ and for Figma is 109$. They have a package at 149$ that includes the whole package.
How to Create a UI Kit Yourself?
There is a good chance any of the existing UI kits may not be suitable for you on its own. You may have to use a combination of some of them. If you have very specific needs not provided by a premade UI kit, you can create one of your own.
1. Plan out your design and required tools
Depending on what type of projects you will handling, you will have different required tools.
Will you be handling simple designs? If yes, make sure all the design elements are present and you can easily find and apply them. Are you working on complex projects that require a lot of customization? Make your kit such that it has all the bases, different parts, and customization tools on the go.
If you plan on using your kit for yourself, you can design it however that suits you, but if you want to sell or allow other developers to use it, research standard kit structures and layouts because no one would find it convenient to learn other people’s preferred layout. This will allow others to start working with your kit right away.
Whatever UI kit you build, decide on it early so that you have a vision of how the final product will look like.
2. Pick a platform
Once you know what you want to build, you will need to determine what platforms you will be creating them for. Depending on that, your building tools and procedures might be different.
3. Design a suitable UI kit structure
You will need to carefully categorize and organize your design files into the kit to make them easy to use. This is especially important if you intend on sharing it around with your team or other designers.
4. Determine foundational designs
This is where you determine fundamental design aspects to suit your projects; i.e., color schemes, typography, and iconography. Choosing these aspects will help maintain consistency among your projects.
5. Design UI components from scratch
Unlike with pre-existing builds, you will have to create all your necessary UI components from scratch. From icons and fonts to more complex stuff like animations and transition effects, you will need to separately create everything and add them to the toolkit.
Final Thoughts
What is a UI kit? Now that you know everything about UI kits, we hope you’ll be able to create an intuitive, eye-catching, and user-friendly interface that will increase your conversion rate and grow your business.
