A Practical Approach to the Component Library Challenge

by Amy Gebhardt | at MinneBar 13

Component libraries: another trendy term and (alleged) best practice that you probably can’t stop hearing about. We’re told creating one will speed up the development process and encourage consistency in designs, all while making the entire code base easier to maintain and the app more delightful to use. Sounds like a win, right? The spirit of the idea is great, but like most hip best practices, an actual implementation is time consuming and challenging.

In this talk we’ll dive into a practical approach for creating a component library from scratch - whether you’re a team of one or one hundred. We’ll cover a top ten list of things to think through so you can be confident in creating a successful library. Learn how to jump into this project prepared enough to build a reusable component library with components your team will actually reuse.

All levels

Amy Gebhardt

Amy is an extroverted software developer with a traditional Computer Science background and a passion for technology and people. She is happiest when writing code on her Mac in collaboration with a dedicated team. Currently, she is the Lead Front-End Software Engineer at SportsEngine and spends her time leading platform-wide efforts on a variety of front-end initiatives including creating a reusable component library, reducing technical debt, improving architecture, and building custom developer tools. Creating delightful experiences for other engineers has become her primary focus and strikes the perfect balance between her love for humans and her love for code.