Introduction to web development trends
In the age of digital transformation, with an abundance of information, nothing is everlasting. Constant change has become the norm in all aspects of our existence. The process of web development is not an exception as well. Over the decades, website development has evolved and continues to shift rapidly. As a website owner, you need to be aware of changing website development trends. The recent technological advancements and innovations have changed the way we approach it. The potential has improved substantially with the invention of new programming languages, frameworks and a lot more.
Failing to keep up with new web development trends can result in serious consequences for your website performance and user experience. You may fall behind your competitors and lose traffic to websites offering better experiences.
Developing and maintaining your website according to ongoing trends is the best way to remain competitive in your business niche. Let’s take a closer look at the top trends in website development you can expect in 2022.
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Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
Progressive Web Apps are web apps which possess the functionality and design of mobile apps. The core notion is to build a mobile app sort of experience on web pages or websites. And the result so far is spectacular. Improved conversions, engagement, and reliability are the spotlights. Most of all, if the progressive web app criteria are met, Chrome will notify its users to add this app to the home screen. Ultimately, web applications are trying to provide a familiar, mobile like experience to their fellow (mobile) users.
PWAs help websites to load in no time and can also work offline in apps like Google Maps. Companies like Starbucks, Uber, Pinterest, and Twitter have already been using PWAs for a better user experience.
At the start of 2021, mobile devices accounted for 54% of global internet traffic. With the increased usage of smartphones and tablets to perform various online tasks, it is essential to revamp web applications into PWAs. In addition to providing an unmatched user experience, PWAs offer other benefits, including reduced development costs and seamless maintenance for the provider.
In 2022, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, or Angular will be used to write PWAs.
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Single Page Applications as a Convenient Development Strategy
Considered one of the most significant recent web development trends, single-page applications (SPAs) are JavaScript-based web applications that load a single HTML page in a visitor’s browser and dynamically update content as needed without refreshing the page. SPAs have been widely adopted by the development community, as well as Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Besides being cost-effective and relatively easy to create thanks to the popular AngularJS framework, SPAs consume less space on servers and provide information to users efficiently on a single page without the need to navigate around. These benefits make SPAs a win-win for developers and site visitors alike.
As online consumers expect faster and simpler app experiences, we can expect the SPA trend to continue into 2022.
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Accelerated Mobile Pages to Improve the Mobile Experience
AMP or accelerated mobile pages is a known factor as for now. Since the Google began sponsoring it, using the same has become a norm already. However, it can drastically improve the performance of your web content and advertisements. And if you implemented it in the right manner, it will positively impact your site speed, user experience, and revenue as well. Because the number of mobile users has increased substantially, the demand for AMP has grown much higher as well. This trend is predicted to be continued in 2022 also.
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Improved Native Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity — the practice of securing data, networks, and computers from misuse is one of the most critical concerns of 2022. Every company, no matter its size, is vulnerable. For example, in June 2021, hackers were able to scrape the accounts of 700 million LinkedIn users to acquire personal information including full names, emails, and phone numbers.
According to CDN provider Cloudflare, the number of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks nearly doubled each quarter in 2020. Hours of downtime, significant loss of revenue, and a damaged reputation are just a few effects of DDoS attacks.
With such an alarming increase in cybercrimes, website development has adapted to make it easier to protect company and customer data. There’s already been a shift toward application-based multi-factor authentication like Google Authenticator, patch management, and Security Operation Centers (SOC).
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Mobile-friendly Development
As mentioned, mobile devices account for over half of web traffic worldwide. Plus, nearly three-quarters of global ecommerce sales are completed on mobile. From these stats, it’s clear that taking a mobile-first approach to web development has become essential.
Many developers have taken this approach for years. But being “mobile-friendly” is constantly fluctuating. In 2022, it means using geolocation data to deliver highly personalized experiences to users, offering one-click ordering on ecommerce apps, and incorporating biometric authentication like fingerprint scanning or voice recognition, among other trends.
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WordPress Development
The WordPress CMS powers over 40% of all websites, and a presence that large demands attention. An open-souce platform, WordPress continually adds more features to meet users’ needs. WordPress devlopers should be aware of how WordPress evolves over time.
As for 2022, Gravity Forms CEO Carl Hancock notes the arrival of Full Site editing, which will extend block editing functionality to the entire website, not just posts and pages: “2022 will be a pivotal year for the CMS as it introduces the biggest change to theming in the history of the open-source project: Full Site Editing. Scheduled to be introduced in WordPress v5.9, Full Site Editing is poised to introduce major sea change in how web sites are created and managed with WordPress going forward.”
You may also read Top 12 software development trends in 2022
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Optimized Voice Search
First introduced by Google in 2011, voice search is rapidly rising in popularity. Intelligent virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri showed unprecedented market growth in 2019 and are forecasted to continue to grow rapidly, according to an analysis by Grand View Research.
More tech giants are entering the market or creating new products, like Google Home and Apple HomePod, to meet consumer demand.
Data by Juniper Research predicts that as many as 55% of all households in the world will have voice assistants by 2022. As a result, voice search will be more relevant than ever.
Consumers are not just using smart speakers to conduct voice searches either — they’re also using their smartphones and IoT devices for voice search. As a result, voice search results will start ranking higher, and more frequently, on search engine results pages. So, companies will be working on optimizing their products — as well as their content strategy — for voice search in 2022.
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AI Chatbots
In 2022, AI chatbots are expected to become even more sophisticated in meeting the needs of and matching the behavior of users by leveraging machine learning, natural language processing, and information retrieval techniques.
Besides assisting companies in performing faster operations using voice or text chats, AI-enabled chatbots also help improve the customer experience. They can collect data, answer frequently asked questions, and solve other issues, thereby providing customers with seamless digital experiences with a company.
Conclusion
Since the digital transformation, the demand for web development has increased over time. And then with new market expectations and needs, it has gone further in terms of efficiency, performance, and precision as well. In this document, we have mentioned some of the most prominently possible web development trends. However, this list is not complete, there are other possible advancements in web development, which have the potential to turn things around. Tune in to know more about current web development trends.
