React Native, a versatile framework for app development has gained significant traction in recent years. As technology evolves and consumer demands continue to rise, developers face the challenge of creating innovative and unique applications that can cater to a wide array of devices, standing out in recent times isn’t a child’s play. To fit in the bracket of a decent app, you at least need to have a responsive design. However, to make your application interesting, it needs to have highly usable features with an exceptionally unique design. React Native is a popular framework that can help you achieve the two.
As of today, React Native development stands a par with other UI frameworks because of its exceptional design libraries and ease of development. To further explore this idea, and why businesses need responsive and unique apps, we have written this article so let’s read ahead.
What is React Native?
React Native is an open-source UI framework for the development of apps and software. The framework is created by the Meta Platform and can create applications for Android, iOS, Windows, Android TV, macOS, Web, and UWP. In fact, it can also be used to create virtual reality apps for devices like Oculus.
There are plenty of React Native app development services available because the framework can be used for creating cross-platform applications. It offers best-in-class javascript libraries that help create interesting and interactive visual elements. It gives the freedom of native platform render, therefore, enabling the developers to create platform-specific apps with a single technology. Adding to it, the fast refresh feature of the framework helps you to iterate existing code and see changes without waiting for it to complete the build.
What are Responsive User Apps?
Responsive apps are applications and software that are developed so that they can adapt to any screen size across devices. These applications are created by developers to give a unified experience to the users on any type of device be it a desktop, laptop, or smartphone.
Here are some of the reasons to create a responsive user app:
- It automatically adjusts the app layout, content, and functionality.
- It reorganizes the screen as per screen dimensions and orientation
- It fixes issues like distorted visuals, odd navigation, and missing features.
Responsive apps are primarily created for creating designs with grids, images, and
CSS media queries. Once implemented, it makes everything adaptive to the screen. In fact, the user can switch the orientation from landscape to portrait, and the app will automatically adjust itself. As of today, it is standard practice in the development industry. Also, it is important as there are so many devices, screen sizes, and resolutions to cater to.
How React Native Creates Unique and Responsive User Apps?
Creating a unique app experience and a responsive app are two different things. Making a unique app is all about creating a unique design language, while responsive design is more functional. Therefore, we have segmented this into two aspects.
1. React Native Creating Unique Apps
React Native has a bunch of pre-built components for styling and developing the UI of an app. In fact, it supports a variety of third-party libraries to design and create unique applications.
Style
The style component in React Native is very close to how style works in CSS. Using this, we can pass on an array of styles for styling the basic elements of the application. It is primarily used to set up a basic frame for the design language of the application.
UI Libraries in React Native
This is where the true magic happens. React Native is a huge open-source community. This is the reason multiple third-party libraries are compatible with the UI framework. Let’s explore some of the most popular ones:
NativeBase
NativeBase is a React and React Native library that allows you to maintain consistency throughout the application. It provides native components that can be used for both frameworks mentioned earlier. NativeBase helps you build custom components with utility based-props for the design. It is an impressive UI component library that can be used for creating a skeleton of an app.
Features of NativeBase:
- Themeability allows you to create personalized themes and components
- Utility-prop helps control elements on a granular level
- It offers responsive styles
- It comes with a color mode to enable switching between dark and light colors.
- Pseudo-props features let you control platforms, color modes, interactions, etc.
React Native Paper
React Native Paper is a design library that can be used for making apps that feel native. Its high-quality material design library covers the user in all aspects. This is another responsive library that is free and open-source. It can help you create interfaces that are fast and reliable in nature.
Features of React Native Paper:
- It supports the new material design “Material You”
- It gets you the ease of switching between light and dark theme colors
- It is compatible with screen readers, readability tools, and language processing right-to-left.
- It offers a customized set of components
- It can help set up the app skeleton
Teaset
Teaset is another React Native UI library that comes with over 20+ pure JS components. These components can be used to control the display and action control. The control of the UI library is created using Javascript and supports the Redux toolkit.
Features of Teaset:
- Its features are capable of enhancing content display and user control
- It comes with several useful modules i.e. TabView, DrawView, and Stepper
- It is licensed under MIT
- It has a 2.9K stars rating on the GitHub platform
2. React Native for Responsive Design
There are several ways of creating a responsive design using React Native. Let’s check them out one by one!
Flexbox
Flexbox is used to create single-dimensional grids for the app. It can be used for creating responsive design because of its flexible way of creating layouts in terms of size, positions, and margins.
Dimensions API
Dimension API gets you the screen dimensions. This info can be used to render components based on the screen size.
Media Queries
React Native doesn’t have an in-built mechanism to support media queries. However, the dimensions from the dimension API can be used to create custom conditional logic based on screen sizes.
Percentage-based Sizing
This is another way of creating responsive UI. Instead of using a fixed value, use percentage-based dimensions. Using this component, you can automatically adjust the size of the component as screen size.
Advantages of React Native Unique and Responsive User Apps for Your Business
React Native provides internal as well as external support for creating responsive designs with great libraries and material design. However, there are several advantages of using React Native and creating unique & responsive user apps.
Cross-platform Compatibility
Different platforms have different screen sizes and configurations. Using React Native, React Native development services are capable of creating cross-platform applications that are responsive in nature. This means that the application will provide an identical experience in every platform for which the app is made.
Improved User Experience
The user can switch from one screen to another. From one platform to another, however, the experience doesn’t change for them. This provides ease of use and recognizability with the UI of the application, thereby, improving the user experience.
Consistent Branding
The application has multiple branding elements on an application such as design, logos, images, etc. With an unresponsive application, these can look different on different screen sizes and interfaces. However, with a responsive design, they look identical everywhere, thereby, sustaining consistency.
Future Proofing
Initially, there were smartphones with a screen resolution of 340*240, this screen size has now gone to full HD resolution (ideally), and in some flagship devices even 4K. With a responsive design, the app UI isn’t bothered by changing resolution because it is capable of adapting itself to the resolution.
Wrapping Up!
With the market becoming saturated with tons of applications dropping every month, it is difficult to stand out. In fact, responsive designs are not a way to stand out instead a way to fit in. The user of today isn’t willing to compromise on the quality of the apps it uses. They want an excellent user experience and an immersive & unique UI. React Native as a framework gives you everything to create an engaging app, however, its capability to stand out simply depends on your imagination.
