This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Gokulnath P
As web development evolves, it is important to choose the right practices that help us create a scalable, readable, maintainable, and testable codebase. In this blog series, we will look at different practices that help us create such a codebase.
This blog series is divided into three topics:
- Application Design
- State Management
- Testing Practices
State Management
Understanding how to convert business requirements into a React codebase with minimal effort is crucial. In today's blog, we will be exploring the following practices under State Management:
- Understanding the state
- Efficiently managing the form state
- You Might Not Need a useEffect
Understanding the state
To build performance-heavy applications, it is important to understand the scope of state and what should go into it. State should be placed as close as possible to the components that require the data, to avoid unnecessary re-rendering. Identify what doesn't qualify as state
- Does it remain unchanged over time? If yes, it isn’t state.
- Is it passed in from a parent via props? If yes, it isn’t state.
- Can you compute it based on existing state or props in your component? If yes, it definitely isn’t state.
Reference: Find the minimal but complete representation of UI state
Efficiently Managing Form State
Maintaining the state of forms is as important as managing application-level state. Forms have unique needs such as handling frequent changes, applying validation, and processing submissions. Since form state changes frequently, place it close to the form component to:
- Improve application performance by avoiding unnecessary re-rendering of other components.
- Test the behaviour of the form, not its internal implementation.
You Might Not Need a useEffect
useEffect is an escape hatch in React, allowing interaction with external systems such as non-React widgets, network calls, or the browser DOM. Avoid using useEffect just to update a component’s state from prop or state changes.
- You don’t need Effects to transform data for rendering.
- You don’t need Effects to handle user events.
Reference: You Might Not Need an Effect
That is all for today. In our next blog, we will look at some of the best practices for testing in React.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Gokulnath P
Gokulnath P | Sciencx (2025-10-06T15:01:38+00:00) React: Effective UI Practices. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/10/06/react-effective-ui-practices-3/
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