What is a UI Kit: a comprehensive guide

Since online customers can’t physically touch or test products or services you sell, they form their first impression about your brand based on the e-commerce interface. Customers expect your website to be visually appealing, engaging, interesting but not too extraordinary and, of course, functionally advanced.

But how to ensure all website elements are consistent and unified? In this article we will consider the definition and examples of UI Kit and learn how your business can benefit from it.

UI kit definition 

UI Kit is a set of graphic elements designed in the same style and drawn in all possible states during user interaction (blocked, in focus, empty, filled, filled with an error). UI kits may differ from one project to another, but usually include the elements from the following list:

• Buttons;
• Links
• Colors
• Checkboxes
• Fonts
• Widgets

Each UI Kit element can be reused on any page of a website, portal, or application. The more pages you have on your website, the more you need to create a UI Kit. It will help you to make all the elements look harmonious and comprehensive. If the designer doesn’t use UI-kit, your interface may look like a small mess of different buttons and styles. Because of this, users will not understand what this or that element means, resulting in a high bounce rate.

Why is a UI kit a must-have?

Some people mistakenly think that UI kits are useful only for large projects, but they offer loads of benefits to all types of businesses. Below you will find the most prominent advantages of using a UI kit.

1. Ensure coherent and harmonious design

The bigger the company, the more diverse the team of specialists working on the project. In such conditions it may be challenging to keep a constant contact with each other and use the same interface elements. Consequently, it may bring confusion to the final product. An approved UI kit with clearly defined rules and recommendations for work with interface elements will help you standardize terminology for all participants in the process. This means that at any time a new person can be easily and quickly introduced to the project. UI kit will help to avoid confusion in communication, and to train the employee quickly and efficiently.

2. Time and cost efficiency

If you have a UI kit, you don’t need to develop interface elements for all business projects. It will be enough to take the required element in the needed state, add it to the page template, knowing the exact color, size of the element and its rules of placement on the page. If needed, you can make minor changes to the elements to make them look special. Anyway, it will take less time from developers and money from you as a business owner.

3. Convenient for creating an MVP

If you have a startup idea and want to test it, you don’t necessarily need to invest loads of money into developing advanced web products. You can start with a minimum viable product (MVP) to get feedback from users and understand whether this startup has a potential for scaling.

4. Scaling potential

The UI kit allows you to scale the design to hundreds of layouts and products, as well as training materials for them. It means that by investing into the UI kit once, you may use it many times.

UI kit examples

When the Turum-burum  team creates a UI-Kit, it includes all the interface elements that we are using during project development, as well as those that may be needed in the near future. The UI kit elements usually differ depending on the project goal and the brand identity. See some of our works below.

1. Tilly Pig

While working on the Tilly Pig project, we had to develop a website UX/UI design from scratch to launch a new brand product on the market. Therefore, we had to create customized icons and interface elements to make the brand eye-catching and unique. Since the company produces unique handcrafted printed piggy banks, we’ve chosen pink or purple colors with animalistic elements that are associated with the brand.

2. NFTrends

NFTrends is another unique startup for which Turum-burum developed the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) from scratch, and a personal panel for four different user flows. Since the brand delivers quite complicated digital services, we had to create a clear and clean design that wouldn’t distract users from the information presented on the website.

So, we worked out a UI guide that described in detail how certain website elements should look in all their states. This allows us to pass all needed information to the development team, scale the project later and make any changes without losing the brand identity.

3. World of Comics

World of Comics – is a chain of themed stores for geek and pop culture fans in Ukraine. Our main goal was to develop not a website in its usual perception but a unique environment for a tight-knit community. To be on the same wavelength as the target audience, we developed customized illustrations and icons. Not to overwhelm users with interactive elements, we decided to choose simple colors and fonts. However, it doesn’t mean that they were chosen intuitively, everything was thought-out and written in detail:

What is Figma UI kit?

A Figma UI kit is a collection of pre-designed user interface elements and components that can be used to build digital products like websites, mobile apps, and other software interfaces. These kits typically include a variety of elements such as buttons, icons, forms, navigation bars, and templates, all crafted to fit together seamlessly.

Key Benefits of Using Figma UI Kits

• Efficiency: designers can quickly drag and drop pre-made components into their projects, allowing them to focus more on the overall user experience and less on the minutiae of individual elements;
• Consistency: Figma UI kits ensure that all components adhere to the same design language, bringing about forming a unified and harmonious interface;
• Collaboration: Figma allows multiple designers to work on the same project simultaneously. UI kits enhance this collaborative process by providing a shared library of components that team members can access and use, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
• Customization: Figma UI kits present some pre-made elements, but they don’t restrict your creativity. Designers can customize and adjust components to better fit their project's specific needs, striking a balance between speed and personalization.

What is a Webflow UI kit?

With the help of a visual web design tool called Webflow, you can translate your design choices into clear, functional code. Among developers and designers, it's a well-liked tool for making responsive websites.

Rapid website development is made possible by the ready-to-use templates and interface elements offered by Webflow UI kit.

It is a worth considering option if you:

• want an all-in-one solution for developing websites;
• don’t like approaches that require coding;
• value rapid prototyping and deployment.

The benefits of selecting Webflow UI kits

• Design that is responsive: The manner that Webflow UI kits are made it possible to start creating responsive design right away. It implies that you won't need to make any additional tweaks for your designs to seem amazing on any gadget.
• Simpleness of Use: Even if you don't know how to code, you can incorporate any interface element into your designs with Webflow's user-friendly templates-based interface.
• Live Prototyping: With Webflow, you can simply develop interactive prototypes and share them with others for feedback. Testing and improving your designs becomes easier and faster as a result.

Free UI kit

Let’s be honest, not all the projects require customized design. Depending on time and money limits, ready-to-use available options may be a perfect choice. In open sources, designers can find free UI kits that usually include items like buttons, icons, typography, forms, and navigation bars, which can be customized and integrated into various projects.

As a business owner, you can benefit from such kits to save money or for developing MVP to test your startup idea. What’s more, if you are looking for inspiration, you can view available UI kit examples to define the overall style and mood of your future project.

UI kit template as a quick and effective solution

A UI kit template is a comprehensive set of pre-designed components and layouts that designers use to create user interfaces for websites, applications, and software. 

Popular sources for UI kit templates

• Dribbble: Offers a variety of UI kit templates shared by professional designers.
• Behance: A platform where designers showcase their work and share free and premium UI kits.
• Sketch App Sources: A repository of design resources specifically for Sketch, including numerous UI kit templates.
• Adobe XD Resources: Adobe’s official site offers a collection of UI kits and design resources for Adobe XD users.

UI kit templates are invaluable tools for designers, offering efficiency, consistency, quality, and flexibility. By leveraging these templates, designers can streamline their workflow, maintain design standards, and create visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces.

Drawing the line

All in all, UI kits are essential tools for designers who appreciate time and cost-efficiency, since they allow them to develop visually advanced and coherent interfaces. Such kits will help you create high-quality, user-friendly websites with a great potential for scalability that is highly beneficial for business owners. 

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