Application Components Library

Project Overview

The Access Idaho development team builds web applications in Java and needed an updated UI library to provide the developers with pre-built sets of components and documentation library. The component library aids a more efficient and effective development process, as the developers can focus on the back-end details of the application and optimization instead of spending time building functionalities and making UI decisions. 

My Contributions

Researcher, Designer, Front End Developer

Research & Planning

The new components library needed to be updated to Bootstrap 4, provide a more modern look in-line with the updated version of Idaho.gov, and be flexible so that it could be used for a variety of different web applications for different State of Idaho Agencies.

Inline with flexibility, there were also component updates and new requests to be added to the library. I spent time working with the project managers and the developers to determine what elements had issues in the past, such as the date-picker, and what elements clients requested or would be most helpful.

Pictured to the right is an example of the old application components library on the left and the updated version on the right.

old DRD screen to new DRD screen
app template date picker

Development

I began building the updated application components library in a Jekyll site until the development team had time in their schedule to begin a new project to start pulling the elements into a Java Grails projects. With each of the components, an example is pictured as well as the code that can be easily copied and pasted.
 
As the development team had time, we began a new project in Grails where they could bring in the elements, updated source files, and test to make sure everything worked with the Grails tag library items they identified to keep from the old application component library.

Launch and Beyond

The project has been successful so far and feedback about the new features and updated look has been very positive. As applications are scheduled to be updated or a new project starts, I work to prototype the application with the project managers using the new application components library.