A shared component library for CRU

The short version

CRU had brought development back in-house after years of outsourcing, and every team was rebuilding the same interface pieces in its own style. I helped build the company's first shared component library, then rebuilt the product on top of it. Interface work now takes about half as long.

What was at stake

Two costs, and the invisible one was larger. The obvious cost was time: every team building its own version of a button, a form, a data table, then maintaining it forever.

The quieter cost was trust. When a company's products each look slightly different, customers notice, even if they could not tell you what is wrong. For a business selling analysis to serious clients, looking scattered is not a small problem.

Building the shared parts

We built one set of interface pieces designed to be used everywhere: buttons, forms, tables, and the layouts that hold them. Made once, properly, by people whose job that was — rather than six times, hurriedly, by people who needed to get on with something else.

Accessible by default, not as an afterthought

Every piece was built to work for people using a keyboard or a screen reader. Building that in once means every product gets it automatically, and nobody has to run an expensive accessibility retrofit later.

Documented so people actually use it

A shared library nobody knows about gets ignored, and then rebuilt. Every piece is documented with live examples a developer can look at and try, so finding the right one is faster than writing your own. That is what makes adoption stick.

One library, several brands

CRU's products do not all look identical, so the library carries the shared behaviour while letting each product keep its own appearance. Teams get consistency where it saves money and freedom where it matters commercially.

Proving it on a real product

I rebuilt the existing product to use the library rather than leaving it as a nice idea in a repository. Doing that surfaced the pieces that were missing or awkward — which is the only reliable way to find out whether a shared library survives contact with real work.

Where it landed

• Interface work takes roughly half the time it did before.
• Global teams build from one shared library instead of several private ones.
• Accessibility is built into every component by default.
• Products share a consistent look while keeping their own brand.