All things design and code.
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·5 min read
How to Build a Component Library with Proper Versioning
Building a component library is easy. Building one that other developers can depend on — with proper exports, peer dependencies, versioning, and a changelog — is not. This is the complete setup that gets it right from day one.
Featured
·5 min read
Server State Management and How TanStack Query Fits In
If you've been reading the React Foundations series and Alex Chen keeps mentioning TanStack Query as the replacement for useEffect data fetching — and you've been wondering what it actually does and why it exists as a category of its own — this is that explanation. With a real user profile card you can build today.
Featured
·5 min read
React.memo, What Is It Actually Doing?
If you've been reading the React Foundations series and seen React.memo appear in performance-related articles without a clear explanation of what it actually wraps and why — this is that explanation. With a real notification feed component you can build today.
Featured
·4 min read
useRef: The Hook That Remembers Without Re-Rendering
If you've been following the React Foundations series and seen useRef appear in custom hooks and component implementations without a clear explanation of what it actually holds — this is that explanation. With a real autosaving text editor widget you can build and use today.
Featured
·3 min read
Make Use of useMemo Like You Mean It
If you've been following the React Foundations series and kept seeing useMemo appear alongside useCallback without a clear explanation of when it actually helps — this is that explanation. With a real filterable product list you can build and use today.
Featured
·3 min read
Did You Know useCallback Can Actually Do This?
If you've been reading the React Foundations series and kept seeing useCallback appear in custom hooks and effect dependency arrays without a clear explanation of what it actually does — this is that explanation. With a real dropdown component you can build today.
Featured
·4 min read
useEffect, What Is It Really?
If you've been reading the React Foundations series on DesignDev.io and kept seeing useEffect appear without a full explanation of what it actually is — this is that explanation. Real examples, real UI components, no hand-waving.
Featured
·5 min read
We're Not a Blog. We're a Team.
DesignDev.io isn't one person's opinion column. It's nine writers covering everything from React internals to freelance rate cards — and one founder explaining what they all missed. Here's who we are and why we built this.
More Stuff
·3 min read
Building a Badge Component — Variants, Sizes, and Dot Indicators
Badge is the first purely presentational primitive in this series — no form integration, no event handling, no focus management. That simplicity is deceptive. A Badge that looks right in isolation often breaks inside a nav item, a table cell, or an avatar. The decisions that make it composable are worth getting right now.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Building a Label Component That Actually Connects to Its Field
We've referenced a Label component in every form field article so far without building it. That's intentional — you need to understand what the Label connects to before you understand what it needs to do. Now that we have Input, Textarea, Checkbox, RadioGroup, Select, and Toggle, the Label's job is clear: it's not just styled text. It's the accessible name of a form field, and it carries required indicators, optional markers, and disabled state as part of that responsibility.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Building a Toggle / Switch Component from Scratch
Toggle and Checkbox look similar but mean different things. A Checkbox records a choice in a form — you submit it later. A Toggle applies an effect immediately — dark mode on, notifications off, feature enabled. That semantic difference changes the HTML element, the ARIA role, and the user's expectation of what happens when they interact with it.
Muhammad Athar
·4 min read
Building a Select Component — When to Use Native and When to Go Custom
The Select is the component where most UI libraries make a hard choice and then pretend it was easy. Native select elements are accessible and mobile-friendly but nearly impossible to style. Custom selects look great but carry the full weight of keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and focus management. We're building both — and being honest about when each one is the right call.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Building a Radio Group Component with Keyboard Navigation
A group of radio inputs is not just a list of checkboxes that only allow one selection. It's a distinct ARIA pattern with its own keyboard contract — arrow keys move between options, Tab moves out of the group entirely. Get this wrong and keyboard users are stuck tabbing through every option one by one. Get it right and the group behaves exactly as assistive technology and keyboard users expect.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Building a Checkbox Component — Custom Styles Without Losing Native Behaviour
Custom checkboxes are where most UI libraries make their first real accessibility mistake. They replace the native input with a styled div, wire up click handlers, and forget about keyboard navigation, screen readers, and the indeterminate state. We're keeping the native input and styling around it — all the customisation, none of the accessibility regressions.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Building a Textarea Component That Grows with Its Content
A fixed-height textarea is one of those small friction points that quietly frustrates users. They type more than the box holds, lose sight of what they wrote, and start scrolling inside a tiny rectangle. Auto-resize solves this in about ten lines — but there are a few details that make the difference between a resize that feels native and one that jumps around.
Muhammad Athar
·4 min read
Building a Design Token System with CSS Custom Properties and Tailwind v4
Hardcoded colors feel fine when you're building for yourself. The moment someone else installs your library, they become a problem — every component locked to your brand's blue, with no clean way to change it. CSS custom properties fix this at the root. Set them up once and every component in the library becomes themeable for free.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Building an Input Component with Validation States and Accessibility Built In
A plain HTML input gets you 20% of the way there. The other 80% is validation states, error messages, label connections, ref forwarding, and accessibility attributes that most implementations bolt on as an afterthought. We're building all of it into the component from the start.
Muhammad Athar
·3 min read
Versioning and Changelogs for a UI Library — How to Do It Without Embarrassing Yourself
Versioning is a contract with your consumers. Break the contract silently and they'll stop trusting your library. Break it loudly — with a clear changelog and a predictable version number — and they'll upgrade with confidence. Here's how to do it right from the first release.
Muhammad Athar
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