Web Development Trends to Adopt

Hottest Web Tech Trends to Adopt

“Figuring out what the next big trend is, tells us what we should focus on.”

Mark Zuckerberg

Even if the billionaires with a decade of experience heading the industry recommend us to do so, what can we do but agree? To simplify your search, save your time, and help your business to grow in a new decade, here we have collected some of the top trends:

1. Voice search

We are currently experiencing the beginning of the voice search era. Every smartphone is already equipped with a digital voice assistant (Siri for iPhones, Google Assistant for Android-based phones). Moreover, smart speakers empowered with AI are gaining popularity.

What is the reason behind this shift toward voice interfaces?

• Ease of use

Communication is something we don’t have to learn. Therefore, children and elders can interact with voice interfaces without any learning curve.

• Affordability

Digital voice assistants are a common smartphone feature already. Smart speakers are not that common yet, but a price tag starting at $50 is a great prerequisite for expansion.

The report says that “voice assistant use reaches critical mass.” And by 2021, it is expected that almost 123 million US citizens, or 37% of the entire population, will use voice assistants.

Use it for your business

Voice search is one of the main trends in e-commerce. However, it is also applicable to all businesses across the web. If you want your web app to be found, optimize it for voice search as soon as possible.

Also, consider developing your own application for smart speakers. This will give you one more channel for building a loyal audience and generating sales.

2. WebAssembly

When building a web app, performance is usually compromised. JavaScript limitations make heavy calculations slow, and that significantly affects user experience. This is why most of the popular games and powerful applications are only available as a native desktop app.

WebAssembly is here to change the game. This new format aims for native-like performance among web apps. With WebAssembly, the code in any programming language can be compiled into bytecode that runs in a browser.

WebAssembly code is executed faster than JavaScript. As a result, you can write the performance-critical parts of the app with the most suitable language (C/C++/C#/Rust/Kotlin, etc). WebAssembly will then take care of execution in the browser. Native apps can be run in the browser right away. That means access to more users while offering comparable performance on the web without additional development expenses!

More and more major web and desktop browsers including Microsoft Edge, Safari, Chrome, Opera Mobile, etc. make it possible to take UX sky-high with this trendy tool.

Use it for your business

Web apps are becoming more powerful with WebAssembly. This technology is definitely worth trying out if you plan to build an online image or video editor, web game, P2P platform, music app, interactive educational and training apps, 3D mapping apps, etc.

3. Content personalization through machine learning

Artificial intelligence, including machine learning, affects our everyday activities on the internet without us even recognizing it. This is the main point of ML — providing improved experiences natively.

Machine learning is the ability of software to improve performance without direct input from developers. Basically, the software analyzes incoming data, detects patterns, makes decisions, and improves its work.

Airbnb, for example, employed machine learning to customize search results for guests to increase the chances of host acceptance of their request. A machine-learning algorithm analyzes the request acceptance decisions of each host. Depending on it, the search results in listings that are more likely to be accepted rank higher. A/B testing has shown a 3.75% increase in conversion. As a result, all Airbnb users are now treated according to this algorithm, which improves customer satisfaction and increases revenue.

Machine learning is being used in web apps in different industries, such as healthcare, finance, education, agriculture, etc. This technology offers significant improvements that would be difficult to achieve without AI.

Use it for your business

Machine learning is becoming a significant part of any web service. It’s important to integrate it into your services as well! Analyze your website visitor behavior and adjust the content they are shown. Your visitors won’t ever find out that you’re using an algorithm, but their satisfaction will result in an increase in engagement and conversion!

Machine learning can be your secret weapon to outplaying your competitors!

4. Data security

The more data that a web app processes, the more attractive it looks to cybercriminals. They aim to spoil your services and steal your users’ data or internal company information. This can cause great harm to your reputation and cost you a lot. Data security is a major aspect to consider

Use it for your business

No matter what web app you plan to launch, its security is the #1 thing you must focus on. Keep an eye on the most effective approaches and make sure your development team has proficiency in security questions and is skilled enough to keep important data safe.

5. Progressive web apps (PWA) and accelerated mobile pages (AMP)

Google prioritizes web apps that load quickly on mobile devices. This is why you should consider implementing PWA or AMP, which are unique technologies that reduce web page load time.

A progressive web app (PWA) is a web page that replicates a native mobile experience. It is fast, can work online or with a poor internet connection, and is relatively low cost. A PWA supports interactions, allowing users to enjoy a high-end experience without ever realizing that they are still using the browser. E-commerce web apps are a common use case for this technology.

An accelerated mobile page (AMP) works for static content only, but they load faster than regular HTML. An AMP omits all fancy elements and displays only the essential information — text, images, etc. This approach works perfectly for blogs and news publishers.

Whether you should adopt PWA or AMP depends on your specific case. However, you should start considering these technologies right now. Along with delivering a high-end experience, you have a chance to dramatically improve your search result rankings.

Use it for your business

There are so many great PWAs we use on a daily basis without even mentioning it! Some of them like Twitter have more than 330 million active users monthly; others are on their way to striking success. So if you plan to build a simple web game, a lifestyle or sports app, an entertainment app, or a news website, you should consider the PWA approach.

AMP would be a splendid idea if:

• most of your web app users access it via mobile devices;
• page load speed is so low that users abandon it easily;
• SEO and app promotion are important to you.

6. Multi-experience

The app development story started from smartphones, tablets, and laptops, which are now so widespread we cannot even imagine our day without them. These days, other smart devices, vehicles, smartwatches, and components of IoT systems are gaining their striking popularity. Mobile-friendly apps are a must; however, the fresh and crispy trend for app development emerges. Welcome multi-experience – the way to let users use your app wherever they want to: on a tablet, on smartwatches, in a car, etc. The point is to make an app that looks good, works well, and brings value on any device, in the same engaging and useful way.

5G technologies and edge computing stimulate multi-experience trend development. A new generation of wireless technology provides a greater speed of transmissions and wider opportunities to deliver excellent AR/VR experience. We come to the term of fit-for-purpose apps: IT companies worldwide get ready to provide seamless experience all over mobile and web extensions, as well as wearables and conversational devices.

Use it for your business

“…by 2023, more than 25% of the mobile apps, progressive web apps and conversational apps at large enterprises will be built and/or run through a multi-experience development platform,” says the Gartner report.

This decade, a web app you plan to produce should go beyond the limits and run seamlessly on any device and any screen possible. It should be able to connect to sensors and provide advanced experience to the people of the IoT age. Focusing on user multi-experience via single web app, you gain an opportunity to become one of the best businesses in your niche.

7. Motion UI

Motion design is one of the main web design trends of the coming year. Minimalistic design coupled with sophisticated interactions look good and draw user attention.

Think of page header transitions, nice hovers, animated charts, background animations, and modular scrolling. These and many other elements will help you display your unique style and entertain the user, improving behavioral factors and helping your web app rank higher in search results.

Use it for your business

To increase the engagement and provide better UI/UX to your web app’s users, try to upgrade it with motion UI techniques.

• Guide users through your app with animations demonstrating which step to take next;
• React to users’ gestures with catchy animations;
• Demonstrate the relations between different components of an app, etc.

8. Micro frontends

Recently, microservices architecture has won the preference of software developers worldwide: unlike the heavy, monolithic old-fashioned backends, this development style gives more flexibility and scalability. However, there are still complications with frontends, and both enterprise and startup developers need to deal with monolithic codebases building user interface.

A monolithic frontend isn’t just hard to support. It also may affect the overall project’s quality and become the obstacle on your way to success. Fortunately, one of the trends for 2020 shows us how to avoid a potential headache.

We are happy to announce that the opportunity to cut monolithic frontend into small simple pieces, and to test and deploy them separately, has appeared. Multiple teams can work on numerous frontend components and then bring them together in one great web app. This technology is now called micro frontends.

With its help, code refactoring and app upgrade get easier. An engineer can re-write any component of the frontend independently, without harming functionality and the overall UI. This also creates an opportunity to work with several autonomous teams in order to build app faster: each engineering group has its own scope of work and deploys components independently.

Use it for your business

Your engineering team should consider this trend and implement it in your new app no matter what industry you build it for. This would be a contribution to the overall development flow, teamwork, code refactoring, and support, and, as a result, a stronger web application.

Providing your web app’s users with multi-experience, you increase your chances of becoming their #1 choice! At the same time, if you meet their demands in a better way using ML algorithms, you attract even more attention to the app.