“The web is dead”, the Wired magazine told 7 years ago, complaining about bad mobile browsing experience and rapid expansion of mobile apps. Still, 66% of purchases on mobile devices are performed through the web browser, not a native app.
Moreover, we see 66% fewer conversion on mobile websites vs desktops. Which brings us to the current topic – the future of web development and web as a whole. But don’t expect revolutionary changes like Big Data and AI. We’ll talk about evolutionary changes that are happening right now.
- Reliability
- Quick Load
- Visual Effects
- Security
- Responsiveness
- Credentials Management
- Seamless Payment Methods
- Faster Video Playback
- Better Audio Experience
- Live Streaming
5 Main Web Development ?hallenges
Reliability
The web is a constantly growing organism. And like any living organism, it tends to deteriorate and regenerate at the same time. Some web technologies are moving aside, but others are stepping in.
The constant motion of the system requires web developers to stay in touch with the upgrades. For example, Node.js allowed developers to build JavaScript web apps, and use a single programming language for the back and front end.
On top of that, while you can still use MySQL for a database to power your web app, there is a newer technology – Firebase. Firebase is a cloud database maintained by Google, which is specifically designed for development of web and mobile applications.
Quick Load
4 seconds loading time is now absolute maximum. Most websites continue to ignore this recommendation. But if you happened to have a service business app the loading speed becomes even more important.
If we’re talking from a business perspective, it’s vital to make sure you got faster loading experience than your competitors. The good practice is to test web apps in places where you have poor connectivity or intermittent connectivity.
Visual Effects
But it’s not only about loading fast. Web developers should make sure that an animation in their web apps is fast and smooth. For example, when you scroll or if you move around, all basic actions and visualizations should deliver a nice experience.
The best visual effects and animations are those that provide users with hints and directional information. Like at which direction to scroll the page, what information to copy, whether the function is activated.
Security
Basically, any of the new APIs coming out and all websites (no exceptions) are required to have an HTTPS protocol in place. Plus, SSL certificate for a website. If you happened to have an older API, you should implement HTTPS for it. For example, if you have a geolocation service or a messaging service working through HTTP, you’d better hurry to upgrade it. In most cases, it won’t cost you more than a couple of days of work.
Responsiveness
If you build a mobile web app or mobile website, you want to make sure that it works with any kind of resolution, starting from various mobile devices and ending with 4k TVs.
In a summary, the web of the future of web development requires being reliable, fast, engaging, and secure. And the core of this is making sure that your users have a good experience, which will make user come back to your business.
Top 5 Upgrades We’ll See in the Near Future
Credentials Management
Password autofill functionality is one of the simplest tools that may raise the conversion rate of your web platform. There are also autocomplete attributes, that can be assigned to the type fields. Such attributes like “password”, “name”, and “phone”, can help browser to identify which information is required from the user and automatically fill in this data.
Seamless Payment Methods
Usually, we see a number of people abandoning a purchase because of the checkout form. The best way to overcome this issue is by using new payment method like PayPass by MasterCard. PayPass can automatically fill in all user’s delivery data at the time of payment effectively removing the tedious process of checkout.
Faster Video Playback
Audio and video now constitute 70% of the content crossing the internet. And there are even higher requirements for this kind of content. Fast playback, the ability to watch videos everywhere, no matter the connection quality, and great UI is the anatomy of great video experience.
There is a bunch of technologies that allow web developers to preserve that experience. First one is adaptive bitrate streaming. The tech allows to encode the video at multiple bit rates and take the needed one depending on the connection quality the user is having at the moment.
The second one is pre-caching of a first few seconds of the video. This allows to instantly play the content without waiting. This simple tech allowed web developers to get playback from over 3 seconds before the video started to about 100 milliseconds.
Better Audio Experience
One of the things we’ll see upgrading is a lock screen.The phone is in the lock mode for about ? of all time. And there are a lot of cases when the user might not want to watch a video or a content, but just listen to the audio.
If what you’re dealing with is the audio then there is a great use case for you- the Media Session API. It allows developers to put your metadata and images on the lock screen as well as on wearable devices. It’s also great for the users because they can tell what’s going on on their device and they can control it.
Live Streaming
Let’s talk about another part of communication which is live streaming. If you’re sending video to 10 people they probably want to communicate with you. If you’re sending the video to a million people they probably want to communicate with each other.
And the web has a pretty unique advantage in terms of the way people use it. If you want to share something you’ll simply send a URL and your peers won’t have to download the app. But the truth with live streaming is that there is a whole infrastructure challenge underneath the hood. Some challenges can be solved with the playback technologies mentioned above. The other with CDN and better hardware infrastructure.
Bottom Line
The beauty of the web is that users have so many options to choose from. They can use whatever browsers they like and content they prefer. So the web is kind of mix of different kinds of web apps, website, and services. And you too can choose from so many technologies and services. You can decide which one will power your app, and which one will supplement it in a unique way. Just make sure to have the right web developer that will make your wants come true.
