3 Major Benefits of Investing in a UI Style Kit

First, before we get into the benefits of investing in a UI Style Kit, we need to really explain just what a UI Style Kit is. In the most fundamental sense, a UI or User Interface Style Kit is an interactive resource tool kit that encapsulates many - if not all - brand identity assets from basic typography associated with your brand to your brand's color palette to the design of UI components such as your website buttons, check boxes, progress bars, pop-up messages, etc. A critical tool for both designers and developers, UI Kits help define elements in order to ensure a cohesive interface design across numerous online channels and marketing strategies.

You can take a look at this sample UI Style Kit to get a better idea of all that an online UI Style Kit contains.

3 Benefits of Investing in a UI Style Kit:

Time Saver

Once a brand has invested in a UI Style Kit, the initial framework for other projects has been laid out. For example, let’s say your brand needs a campaign-specific microsite and mobile app created. While wireframes and UX still need to happen, teams assigned to these projects can refer to the online UI Kit for functionality and design behind certain interactive elements. Even the smallest projects can take much longer when teams have to start from scratch with no UI Kit to work from. UI Kits help manage expectations when estimating a project because they provide a more realistic sense of how long a project should take to complete by taking the elements in the UI Kit and structuring them accordingly with the wireframes that are created. With a UI Style Kit, testing prototypes can be done faster. Rather than thinking about visual details, UI Kits force you to think about interactions and user flow rather than recreating the same elements over and over again. By incorporating elements of the UI Kit, envisioned design and functions of a website, app, email, etc. can be presented to stakeholders and tested in a much faster manner.

Money Saver

While there is an initial investment in developing an online UI Style Kit, this investment will lower budgets down the road since brands will not need to spend more on foundational design elements specific to each and every project. UI Kits allow for and contain many high-quality designs and functionality elements and are flexible - meaning more elements can be added to these online kits over time which can again save on future costs.

Ensure Brand Consistency

Last but certainly not least, a UI kit can also ensure brand consistency, especially when various internal teams or external agencies are working on different strategic elements of an integrated marketing plan. For instance, your brand may work with one agency to design and execute your email marketing while another agency handles the app development and social strategy. All partnering agencies can refer to your UI kit to incorporate the same design and functionality elements, keeping your brand experience across touch points consistent. Ready to invest in a UI Kit? Reach out to Rhythm to get things started.