Web Development Trends - Technologies to watch out for

Artificial Intelligence

Though Allen Turing and John McCarthy laid the way towards machine “learning” and thinking in the mid-20th century, it is now universally used in software applications to automate the processes. AI makes the best use of data and is massively helpful in statistical & cognitive analysis of the data. AI processes the customers’ data and delivers a personalized part of it needed at a particular stage.
Web development companies would highly use AI on eCommerce websites. It stores customers’ data and recognizes them every time they come back to the same site. This way, AI utilizes customer’s purchase history, their searched pages, and the most exciting categories. The most substantial aspect of AI is that it stores the customer data, evaluates it, and makes decisions upon it.
Artificial Intelligence has utilities in web development like it automates customer care; many websites are using chatbots to answer quick queries by visitors.
Applying AI in your web development projects can streamline manual processes. AI-powered tools can deliver speech recognition, logical reasoning, and decision-making. As the industry advances, AI would be one of the top web development trends in 2021.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Internet of Things is most commonly related to hardware. This technology connects everyday objects to the internet, like internet controlled toys or home appliances. Till 2018, there were 10 billion IoT devices globally; this number is anticipated to reach 75 billion in 2025 (Statista).

What does IoT have in web development, and how is it one of the top web development trends in 2021?

IoT in web development can change the realm of front-end reforming user interactions. Web developers can let their visitors communicate with sensors, cameras, or other devices through their websites.
In an ever-advancing world, there is an excellent likelihood that businesses impacted by pandemic COVID-19 demand more autonomous features, robust internet connectivity with devices, and sensibility on their business web applications. Hence, software companies require mastering this skill to keep pace in the industry.

Chatbots

Chatbots are Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) software that performs as Q&A agent on websites.
These chatbots automate the following processes on a website:

• clicking on the drop-down menu
• tapping through the buttons
• going through different pages on the website
• searching for specific information

Chatbots rapidly answer users’ queries in a smooth conversational fashion.
Chatbots eliminate the cost of hiring a Q&A agent, helping the company financially while offering a fast UX to visitors. There is a chatbot named virtual medical assistant, powered by AI; it makes medical diagnoses quickly and transparently. It provides the contextual answers to the queries posed by patients in natural language.
With all such advantages, it’s evident that chatbots will be a must-have choice for web developers in 2021.

Voice Search Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the most imperative thing in the lives of website owners. SEO can pull your digital business from the depths of the web and display it on the first page of a search engine against a search term. Optimized content arrives among the first ten results for searches relevant to your website. Standard SEO efforts usually go against typed searches. However, with the significant advances of voice-based navigation, there is a need to implement voice search optimization in new websites and when upgrading running ones.
According to a report by TechCrunch, about 66.4 million Americans own smart speakers. They’d prefer voice navigation to a written search query because it is quicker. To use a typed search, you need to wait for the keypad to load, type in a search phrase, and press the button. Voice search is faster and, more importantly, more modern than written search. Ultimately, websites optimized for voice search would rank higher than those lacking it. Adding to this stance, we take reference from Google algorithm update named Florida that says, “integrated websites rank higher than those websites not using voice technology.” Foreseeing web development trends in 2021, Voice Search Optimization seems to be a much-opted trend.

Single-page Websites

Change is constant. Trends, fashions, preferences all keep changing over time. Technology is more aligned with making life easy than easier. We have seen a typical scenario for websites consisting of 4-6 different pages, i.e., Home, About, Contact, Services. A website can hold any number of pages, but these were somehow mandatory so far. As of now, we saw single-paged websites gaining popularity in 2020; they are increasing day by day.
Instead of creating four different pages mentioned above, web developers create a single page and divide it into four sections as needed. This style puts full information on a single page, which helps get ranked higher by search engines and giving visitors a one-stop display.
The development of such websites requires less time and cost and is simpler to optimize for portable devices (mobiles and tablets). What is more to want?

Single-page Applications

Like single-page websites, Single-Page Applications (SPAs) would be a top web development trend in 2021. Some renowned companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Uber, have already begun using single-page applications.  SPAs come with enhanced UX as well as less data consumption. These applications don’t require reloading of the page after an event, let’s say, form submission. Single-page applications provide a maximum natural environment to users. Their content changes, but the URL does not reload. Users can entertain a simple and continuous scrolling. Single-page applications can likewise viably reserve any local data. Subsequently, they are more advantageous if a user runs on a bad connection— the data gets integrated with the server when the internet connection comes back. First-class SPA technologies are React.js, Angular.js, Vue.js, Meteor, and Backbone.js.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

It is an open-source library for making sites, pages, and web applications with a supposed “diet” HTML that makes it overly lightweight and quick loading. AMPs are incredibly valuable for internet business sites. They help sell more in correlation with non-AMP pages due to the fundamental straightforward reason— no one waits for websites to load and switch to competitors’ sites. The investigation shows that even a 1-second delay in a site’s speed can cut sales by 7%.
Speed is a substantial element in website ranking in search engines. Search engines (Google, Bing) leverage websites with fast loading and put enormously low in search results those websites that take too much time to load.
News sites like The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post were among the first to adopt AMP when they understood the amplified permeability in mobile news carousels. Furthermore, news sites that embraced AMP are enjoying publisher carousels in mobile search engine result pages. They get a whole merry-go-round of news if they have various articles on a specific point. AMP is a fruitful standard for news sites and lead generation and online shopping sites that likewise receive help from its search engine rankings and improve site speed.
Being such fruitful for online businesses’ success, it is clear that clients will demand Accelerated Web Pages so, prepare yourself for AMPs in 2021.

PWAs

The internet is a staggering platform. Its omnipresence blend across gadgets and operating systems, its user-focused security model, and how a solitary organization constrains its usage makes it a unique platform for software creation.
Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are fabricated and upgraded with current APIs. They convey improved abilities, dependability, and installability. Additionally, they give easy access to anybody, from anyplace, on any gadget with a solitary codebase.
Performance holds a critical position in achieving any digital experience since “high performing” sites draw in and hold users better than ineffectively performing ones. As we have described throughout the article, websites should be keen on optimizing for the best user experience.
It works in any browser. Users can utilize any browser they decide to get to your web application before it’s even installed.
PWAs are fully responsive to any screen size. Users can use them in full zeal on their cell phones- the content supports any viewport size.
Progressive Web Apps also work offline; they let users keep using apps even when their internet is disconnected, an overwhelmingly wonderful experience. It saves users’ work rather than becoming the app useless and then reloading when the internet has again connected.
Don’t let any web technology remained untouched. Get ready to use PWAs as a top web development trend in 2021.

API-first Approach

The primary function of an API is integrating a functionality made by some other company in your website but precisely a software-related company. Let us take an example when you browse a website like Facebook.com. Does it forward a request to the host/server that acknowledges the site location? The server that the API is attached to will do it. It will receive server requests, make some understanding, and then display the demanded website.
The thing that matters the most for you is the “Practical Application.” Nowadays, these APIs have started to gain attention from companies. Because now companies have started to issue the APIs as a package, we can use them along with the actual product.
At well-known companies like Google, the developer codes top features such as maps and makes them available for the public. Any other developer creating a website can embed API code of Google map to display them on their site rather than programming for it. Instead of programming for earth maps on their developers embed Google Maps API. Google offers this free of cost. Similarly, you can use Twitter API to show tweets on your site.
Application Programming Interface has various advantages for web development. It permits the reuse of the code between the applications. They are much cheaper and accelerate web development by saving coding time for whole new features. In short words, API allows new businesses to scale, accelerate, and fit within even the most limited budgets.

Motion UI

As discussed before, elegant interaction is one of the vitals of an excellent website design. Web developers work with graphics, animations, and transitions to make beautiful web pages. Being a step ahead of others in this industry is a lot about winning a race. Hence, new techniques keep coming in with the potential for producing advantages.
Motion-UI is the latest front-end technology used for achieving the features mentioned above in websites. Web developers can use many animations from the Motion-UI library and can also create their animations. This technology has taken the web development industry by storm. Websites are gaining enormously increased engagements due to great user experience.
You can have the following features using Motion UI:

• page header transitions;
• charts;
• pop-ups;
• pull-down menu;
• Scrolling

The above features will let the web developers show their creative designs, engage the client, improve social factors, and aid your web application rank higher among search results (SEO-friendly).
With the aid of AMP, you can actualize the Motion-UI without losing download speed. So, if you want to attract visitors, then implement Motion-UI in your next web development project.

RAIL Model

Like most upper mentioned trends in this article, RAIL is also not an entirely new thing. This idea initially showed up in 2015, yet it picked up ubiquity just in 2019. It suggests quicker page loading time and gives an outstanding performance of the site.
All that it does incorporate:

• Each entry will get a practically instant response. The feedback comes within 100 milliseconds.
• The animation is given by two components: dragging and scrolling. The objective is to finish each frame in 16 milliseconds.
• Not all components require to be loaded simultaneously. The most fundamental page features should load during the underlying burden immediately. The rest of the code can load later in the background.
• Homepage components, for example, the header bar and the hero section, should load within a second. The quick speed gives users the necessary reason not to divert to another website (You saved your business).

This idea infers instant feedback, consistent animation experience, and speedy execution. The most extended period in this technology is 1 second, during which content should stack the underlying screen. Any remaining activities will perform within milliseconds.

WebAssembly

Throughout this article, we emphasized performance for a web application, and no web developer could compromise on it. JavaScript, however, being the number 1 front-end programming language, has limitations in achieving heavy calculations. It sometimes could slow down the apps, which is a concerning point. At this stage comes an advanced web development technology, “WebAssembly.” This technology makes the code (that runs in browsers) be compiled in bytecode. WebAssembly is a stand-alone framework, independent from platforms, programming language, or hardware. It is efficient in security and speed. Such a tremendous advantage anticipates it as being one of the top web development trends in 2021.