Technological advancements often make it challenging for businesses to survive the competition in the tech world. To keep up with the rapidly changing world, businesses need to adopt the new technological trends. Businesses are always on the lookout for latest progressive web apps development.
The tech world has experienced fundamental changes across the web app development industry in recent years. One such prominent example of mobile app development is seen in Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).
Before jumping on to the trends, let us first understand the concept behind progressive web apps (PWAs).
Introduction to Progressive Web Apps
A progressive web app is a software/app that is designed with web technologies including HTML and JavaScript. Progressive web apps are responsive on most devices and browsers. It works perfectly on regular browsers.
It gains competitive advantage over other web apps because of its high-quality user experience and the potential to deliver value.
Progressive web apps are popular for their functionality and many benefits.
Let’s have a look at some of the reasons why businesses favor PWA over other apps:
- It has the features and potential to replace mobile native apps
- Offers an amazing user experience with advanced UI
- As opposed to other web and mobile apps, it offers a faster experience to offline users and those on an unreliable and weak network
- It has a variety of features including push notifications and ease of approach to offline cached data
- They are very easy to maintain
- They are SEO-friendly
Most software houses and web design companies prefer progressive web app solutions for their clienteles.
Companies using PWAs solutions
Most prominent examples of companies using PWAs are:
- Twitter, Alibaba, Pinterest, Instagram, Flipkart, and AliExpress
Most big e-commerce businesses and social networks use PWA for their interests. These corporate giants implement PWA because it delivers excellent results for their enterprise by increasing their conversion rates and profit.
Trends of Progressive Web Application
With so many benefits and reasons to use, PWAs are becoming the new norm in 2022.
Let’s examine some of the upcoming trends of PWAs.
AI-driven chatbots and virtual assistants
Virtual assistants or chatbots have human-like capabilities of carrying out conversations with the online customers. Most businesses use chatbots for interacting with users and providing customer services. In 2019 more than half of the customer interactions and chats were conducted by chatbots. It implies that businesses and users are adopting the technology at a rapid rate. Whereas, more than 80% of entrepreneurs vowed to adopt virtual assistants for their web apps.
How do businesses use AI chatbots?
Most developers use chatbots constructors and web development apps and software that have the capability to build bot framework. You can use those constructors and development apps to build a chatbot for your PWAs. These bots then align their replies and responses according to the business ideals.
API-powered development
The latest trends in progressive web applications offer comprehensive web solutions in regards to other applications. API development needs to be a priority when making a web or a mobile app. Most app developments require AP-first framework. According to this approach before implementation phase, developers must design and develop the application programming interface first.
How do businesses use API-first approach?
There are certain pre-requisites for an API-driven development and framework. Businesses need to prioritize each task according to its need. They must start with design, followed by development, testing and mock-runs before commencing coding. Most commonly-known software that use API-first approach include API Blueprint and Swagger.
Motion UI
The purpose of motion UI is to make the content more dynamic while ensuring smooth interactions with the app’s features and elements. Tubik came up with “The Homey” app for smart home configuration. It offers a dynamic and amazing motion UI design which enables a seamless and smooth user experience. With the help of animations, app creators are able to see the changes the users wish to make in their smart home settings.
How do businesses use motion UI?
Businesses use a combination of two tools for designing an animated UI. These animations provide an easy solution to improve the overall look, user interface, experience, and feel of the app.
Augmented and virtual reality
The concept of augmented or virtual reality is not a new one. It has been around for some time now. But it still is not widely adopted and accepted because of its high cost. However, as technology is evolving so is the market for augmented reality. There is a significant increase in the number of potential users of augmented reality that could be targeted with the app.
According to an estimate the number will increase to 1.73 billion users in the years to come. Therefore, it is only logical to assume and predict that more web apps will include AR functionalities in their framework in the coming years.
How do businesses use augmented reality in their web apps?
Businesses using progressive web apps will likely include the augmented reality functionality in their basic programming interface to offer an immersive experience to the users. PWAs can benefit greatly from this cool addition to their framework.
Voice assistants
The popularity of voice assistants is growing rapidly. Everyone uses Google assistant, Alexa, and Siri for big and small queries. People find asking questions easier than typing on the keyboard. Therefore, according to a survey, there will be an increase of 8.16 billion devices supporting the voice assistant feature by 2023.
As the number of smartphones is increasing, paired with the accuracy of search with voice assistants, the trend of voice searches is growing. The search results from voice assistants are getting more natural and accurate. Therefore, businesses wish to adapt to this trend. It is an innovative and more responsive way of interacting with the content and data on the web.
How do businesses use voice search?
Businesses are looking for ways to increase the voice search functionality in their web apps. With the help of Actions (a development tool for Google Assistant) businesses can add this functionality to their PWAs. It allows the users to have a unique, interactive, and human-like experience with search engines through artificial intelligence. At the same time, companies could also optimize their websites and progressive web apps for voice search in the initial stages of their business.
The trend of pairing voice optimization with PWAs is a way of edging out your competitors with voice searches. It is totally worth it.
Accelerated mobile pages
We are living in a rapidly-evolving world where speed matters a lot. In the current digital habitat, speed of interaction and information exchange is crucial to the success of any business and app. In such times if your web pages are slow to load and snail around, it would cost you heavily. AMP or accelerated mobile pages are the key concerns for every web app and page. Accelerated mobile pages take 2 seconds to load, whereas the non-AMP pages take 22 seconds. They are an essential optimization factor for progressive web apps.
AMP brings more traffic which subsequently leads to higher conversion rates. It is a great factor for increasing your ROI.
How do businesses use accelerated mobile pages?
Every business should implement these tips in their initial testing of an app. PWAs should also test this functionality to improve their working. The foremost step should be to run the web app through loading speed test. It tests the loading speed of a page and tells you whether it needs amends. If it is slower than 2 seconds or what you expected, you can do a few things to speed it up.
- Use compressed file for uploading
- Remove unnecessary codes and plug-ins
- Use more private servers
- Use 404 codes
Dark mode standardization
The dark trend continues to overthrow every mode in the world. PWAs are expected to see more of this trend in their framework too because of the growing interest of users. Users love dark aesthetics also because it puts less strain on the eyes. Users find dark aesthetics modes more appealing in a web app.
Visual designing allows dark mode standardization and dark themes in web apps regardless of the device being used. The trend will grow more in the coming years and more web apps will offer functionalities involving switching between light and dark themes.
How do businesses integrate dark mode in their web apps?
Every major platform and web app uses this mode as it has become a norm. Whether it’s YouTube, Instagram, Google, or any other app, dark modes are a hit. Even mobile phones come with a built-in feature that allows the users to switch to dark themes and UI. Businesses are incorporating dark modes in their apps across all devices to offer customed services to the users.
Conclusion
These are some of the most prevalent trends of progressive web apps. Trends like dark mode standardization, voice, searches, and chatbots will significantly impact the PWAs and apps across all platforms. Businesses need to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements and mobile app development trends to keep up with the competition.
If you are looking to up your PWAs and other apps you must adapt to these trends. Most successful companies of this era are opting for PWAs and these trends to stay at the top of their game. What is stopping you?