How Modular Websites Can Save Your Team Time and Offer a Great Digital Experience

Before the concept of reusable components, every single website feature was built from scratch. The tiniest required update for bugs and fixes would cost developers hours.

But those days are now gone. Saved time and easily maintainable websites are achievable thanks to modular website design.

As a consultant who develops technical products for major brands, my goal is to build a product that can be easily managed and independently updated. In this article, I will talk about the benefits of building a component library to design modules, how to build a modular website, and more.

Table of Contents

• What is a modular web design?
• Why use a modular website design?
• The Benefits of Modular Web Design
• Is modular web design the same as page templates?
• How to Build a Modular Website
• Modular Website Design Examples
• Repurposeful is the Way to Go

What is a modular web design?

Modular web design follows a decoupled approach by building reusable components or modules that can be developed and tested independently. These independent pieces can then be combined to create layouts that make up a final website. These reusable modules can be used across multiple pages or layouts.

I like to compare modular design to a live band. You have multiple instruments that can be played individually. But when you put them all together, you can present a beautiful sound to your audience.

Why use a modular website design?

I prefer to use modular website design versus building each component for every page from scratch because it can drastically reduce development time. In two days, I recently revamped my mom's business page using React, a JavaScript component library. I attribute the quick turnaround to its component-based architecture and reusable nature.

I interviewed Ken Granderson, a software architect and developer with 27 years of experience, to talk about modularly developed websites. Particularly, I asked Granderson if he thinks developing websites using modular web design saves time and helps with consistency.

"As a developer who values speed and productivity, modular design allows me to achieve [efficency] by reducing repetitive work and simplifying maintenance,” he says.

As software development changed from a monolithic architecture to microservices, independence became a considerable topic, which Granderson emphasizes.

“The principle that underpins my entire approach is separation of concerns — keeping design, structure, and functionality separate. This ensures that changes in one area don’t ripple through others, preventing unnecessary rework. You can quickly iterate and refine designs by breaking down websites into reusable components without starting from scratch every time.”

I agree with Granderson that building with modules can increase efficiency. It also improves collaboration across teams. In the next section, I’ll dive deeper into the benefits of using modular design.

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The Benefits of Modular Web Design

Modular website design supports several software development principles and practices, such as Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY), 12-factor methodology, atomic design, and component-based development.

What do they have in common? They all promote reusability, consistency, and efficiency.

Let’s explore other ways I find modular web design to be beneficial.

Scalable

Creating reusable pieces makes it much faster to build features and easily scale your site.

I remember working on a major wellness brand's digital transformation using Adobe Experience Manager. After all the components were built and the layouts were designed, I helped apply the content on each page.

Turns out this was the most straightforward task of the project because all that was required was to paste the content into the modules. Because the company is global, I could not use the same content for every country, but this wasn't an issue because the modules and components stayed the same. Only the content differed.

Easy to Maintain

When you stray from a monolithic architecture and make independent components and modules instead, updating a component — like a button style — only requires a single change in the component library. Then, it is automatically updated everywhere it's used.

This significantly reduces maintenance time and costs. Additionally, because changes are localized, updates are faster and less likely to introduce new bugs.

Cost-Effective

Building websites with reusable components and modules can often be faster and cheaper upfront than starting from scratch.

For example, in my work on a major media company's user management system, we initially concentrated on creating a library of components like tables, dialog boxes, and buttons since these were used across many pages.

Once we had this foundation, we reduced our development team by 40% because the remaining developers could quickly assemble new pages using these pre-built elements. This not only saved the client money, but accelerated the project, allowing them to launch their product sooner.

Improved Performance

Modular design emphasizes reusable and optimized components, resulting in cleaner, more efficient code and faster website loading times. Additionally, these components are often easier to cache, boosting a website's performance.

Better Collaboration

Modular design often integrates with design systems, providing a shared vocabulary and guidelines for designers and developers.

This common language, along with the consistent use of components from a library, streamlines communication and collaboration. This makes it easier for teams to work together effectively and maintain a consistent design.

Is modular web design the same as page templates?

In my opinion, modular website design and page templates are not the same. This is because you can have a page template that does or does not use modular website design. I asked Granderson to share his perspective, and he agreed that “Page templates and modular components often go hand in hand but serve slightly different purposes.”

A page template is a designed layout for a specific page, such as an About or a Product page. While you can design these layouts using modular web design, they are not the same.

As Granderson puts it, “A page template typically defines the overall structure — number of columns, vertical flow of content, etc. Modular components, on the other hand, are reusable building blocks like widgets, form elements, or navigation menus that you can plug into different templates.

“For example, a Contact page template might have several variations, but the form widget itself remains consistent across those templates. By combining page templates with modular components, you can create scalable websites that are easy to update and maintain.”

How to Build a Modular Website

In this section, I’ll go over how to build your own modular website. Having started my development career with React, I've spent the last year building the front end of applications with Flutter, and I‘m absolutely hooked. Its speed, cross-platform capabilities, and developer-friendly tooling have won me over. So, I’ll be using Flutter to demonstrate how to build a modular shopping app, sharing my insights along the way.

Step 1: Pre-Planning

Before I start coding, I always plan out the app's core functionalities as part of my web design workflow. This allows me to understand exactly what features I need, how they can be broken down into reusable components, and what elements are needed in each module and dependencies.

To start, I made a simple Google Docs sheet that outlined the features and their purpose.

Step 2: Structuring the Project

It is best practice to structure my Flutter app based on features. So, in my app under lib, I make a folder for each feature and house everything related to that feature there.

I also have a components file under lib where I will list all reusable components such as buttons, tables, navbars, etc.

For the sake of time, in this example I will only demonstrate how I built out the product catalog feature in my shopping app.

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Step 3: Building a Feature

Now that I clearly understand what my app needs, I can create my code. First, I refer to my documentation, which outlines what components are needed for this particular product catalog feature.

Then, I make those components and house them under the components directory. For example, I created a reusable card for each item in my inventory. I house these under components and not the feature directory because I can reuse them throughout other features. Check out the code below.

With my reusable ProductCard component ready, I can now build the product details screen. I'll integrate the ProductCard into a GridView, which has the ability to list my product objects in a grid.

Next, I‘ll style the cards and the overall layout to match my app’s design, ensuring a consistent look and feel. To maintain code quality, I can write unit tests for the ProductCard itself and widget tests for the product listing screen to verify its behavior and interactions.

My Products page is coming together, displaying a list of products using those reusable cards. Because I've built with modularity in mind, I can easily repurpose the ProductCard in other parts of my app, like a Related Products section or even within promotional banners.

The CustomTextField, PrimaryButton, and other shared components will also accelerate the development of other screens, like the registration screen or the shopping cart. This modular approach speeds up initial development and makes future maintenance and updates easy.

By building with reusable components and thorough testing, I can confidently launch my app, knowing it's well-structured, maintainable, and ready for scaling.

Now that I’ve shown you how I build applications following the modular website design principle, you can do the same. If you need inspiration to design your elements and layouts, check out our free website design lookbook full of beautifully crafted homepages, blogs, and landing pages.

Modular Website Design Examples

Below, I’m going to share some design examples of modular websites, but keep in mind that since I don’t have access to these applications' code base, I can’t say with 100% certainty that they are using modular website design. However, based on the uniformity, I am almost sure they are.

Let’s check out a few examples.

1. Tadabase

Tadabase is a low-code platform that provides reusable components and a drag-and-drop editor that allows users to create web pages. Ironically, the Tadabase webpage uses the very thing it offers as a solution.

Let’s explore their product and solutions page.

As you can see, both pages look almost identical. The only thing that differs is the content. The columns, the buttons, and the cards are all reusable components that they have pieced together to make two separate pages.

This approach is precisely how modular web design works.

What I like: I like how Tadabase reused their components to create a rich website packed with valuable information. Instead of making their website super custom and busy, they focused more on their content, which makes their website very convincing for someone looking for a low-code platform.

2. TikTok

Social media apps are constantly updating and rolling out new features, and it is recommended that developers update their apps at least once a month.

With 1 billion users, TikTok has to work swiftly to incorporate new features based on feedback and integrations, as well as fix bugs. An app this size cannot afford much downtown, so following a modular design allows TikTok to keep its app refreshed and its users happy.

TikTok most likely follows a modular web design based on the consistency of user profiles and feeds. While each user can customize their videos, the modules and features these live in are all the same.

Pro tip: Remember, releasing an application is only the beginning. You will have to conduct routine maintenance throughout its lifespan. Make your developer's job easier by using reusable code to achieve quick updates.

3. CarMax

The modular website design also makes sense if you have products for sale. For example, CarMax sold approximately 1.6 million vehicles for their fiscal year 2024. Such high sales volume calls for constant inventory updates on their website.

As you can see from the screenshot, each car listing has the same elements, typography, and size. The only thing that differs is the car information. CarMax developers most likely developed a card component for car listings in a module and then reused it for each vehicle listing.

What I like: CarMax's consistent presentation, achieved through the reuse of modular design elements, creates a user-friendly and predictable experience. By presenting vehicle information in a standardized format, customers know exactly what details to expect for each car, making the site easy to navigate and browse.

Repurposeful is the Way to Go

Developing with modular website design is crucial for creating efficient, scalable, and maintainable websites.

As I've learned through examples like my Flutter app and industry leaders like CarMax and TikTok, breaking down projects into reusable components drastically reduces development time, simplifies updates, and improves overall performance. Modular design proves its worth across different scales and complexities, whether for low-code platforms, high-traffic apps, or ecommerce sites.

Embracing this method, alongside careful planning and structured organization, lays a strong foundation for future growth and adaptability, making it an indispensable practice in modern web development.

Free Website Design Inspiration Guide

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• Agency Pages
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• Tech Company Pages
• And More!

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