Frontend System Design Essentials: Normalization Explained

Most APIs return deeply nested data. And at first glance, it seems fine — until you try to update a user’s name in multiple places, or merge partial backend responses cleanly. That’s where normalization comes in.

In this video, I walk you through the idea of **normalized state in frontend development**: what it is, why it matters, and how to implement it in React and Redux.

This is the first episode in the *Frontend System Design Essentials* series — each video focuses on one core concept that helps you build scalable, maintainable UI architecture.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to:

* Understand the difference between nested and normalized structures

* Identify common pain points caused by deeply nested data

* Normalize your frontend state to reduce duplication and improve consistency

* Use Redux with selectors to make your UI cleaner and easier to manage

By the end, you’ll have a clear, practical understanding of normalization — and why it should be part of your system design toolbox.

📚 Want more?

* Frontend Data Fetching Book (50% off): [https://leanpub.com/react-data-fetching-patterns/c/icodeit](https://leanpub.com/react-data-fetching-patterns/c/icodeit)

* Newsletter (system design & clean code): [https://juntao.substack.com](https://juntao.substack.com)

* Refactoring + Patterns Course: [https://udemy.com/course/mastering-maintainable-react](https://udemy.com/course/mastering-maintainable-react)

* React Anti-Patterns Book: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1805123971](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1805123971)

* More Tutorials: [https://icodeit.com.au/tutorials/advanced-network-patterns-react](https://icodeit.com.au/tutorials/advanced-network-patterns-react)

💬 Let me know in the comments: have you normalized your state before? Or struggled with deeply nested data?

#frontend #systemdesign #reactjs #redux #softwareengineering #statearchitecture