Web development trends that will shape 2020

Web development is an extremely flexible industry that sees new trends emerging on an annual basis. We’ve already seen the rise of AI, machine learning, and virtual assistants and yet, there are many more interesting things to come.

Industry experts predict that there will be several trends that will dominate the web development industry in 2020 in accordance with the users’ demands. We’ve collected the top-6 below so scroll down to learn more.

Progressive web applications

Progressive web applications have been a big trend recently. These are web-based applications that are somewhat a blend between the traditional desktop and mobile applications. The main goal of PWAs is to deliver excellent user experience whether from a laptop or a mobile device.

PWAs have quite a lot of benefits, such as:

• They do not require installation and are available via an icon on the device’s screen
• They pre-cache certain elements so they can remain functional even if the device is out of the cellular coverage
• They are shareable meaning a user can copy the PWA’s URL link and send it to a friend (unlike mobile applications)
• They can be discovered via search engines which is a big plus in terms of user experience
• They are rather light-weight and do not consume much space on a device
• They tend to be highly responsive, secure, and efficient.

With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that PWAs are taking over traditional applications. Since PWAs load much faster and consistently deliver a superior user experience and seamless performance, no wonder more and more businesses are turning their attention towards PWA development.

Chatbots

According to Gartner predictions, by the end of 2020 more than 85% of customer interactions with a company will happen without involving a human. That means customers will interact with a company with the help of chatbots so we should definitely expect to see more of smart virtual assistants in the future.

The implementation of a chatbot within a company’s services is extremely beneficial for both the company and its customers:

• The use of chatbots is cheaper than employing human specialists
• Chatbots respond in a faster and more accurate manner
• Chatbots provide a better user experience
• A single chatbot can support all stages of interacting with a customer
• Chatbots can help customers perform simple operations and tasks.

On top of that, about 95% of the customers choose chatbots over live people and they believe that chatbots make better assistants. So for those companies that still hesitate about implementing a chatbot, it’s the right time to get one.

Modular design

Modular design is one of those trends that kinda seems big but still has several pitfalls. The main idea of a modular design is to utilize the reusable, independent, and modifiable components and modules to create a web page.

Modular design implies writing less code and tends to be a cost-efficient solution. However, some experts believe that the deployment of modular design might cause issues with design such as uneven white spaces or multilevel CSS overrides.

Voice search

Even though voice search is nothing new (and almost everyone use their mobile assistants such as Siri or Cortana), this trend will continue to develop and grow in this and the following years.

For search engines, voice search will become an obligatory necessity rather than a “nice-to-have” feature. Numerous studies predict 50% of all searches to be done through voice by the end of this year and two out of five people claim that voice-activated devices are essential for them.

For e-commerce, voice search is a big thing as well. Amazon has already introduced Alexa shopping that offers a somewhat revolutionary way to shop online without even scrolling through the catalog. So we can expect more and more companies to adopt voice search and make it an integral part of user experience.

Motion UI

A study conducted in 2013 revealed that the average human attention span was 8 seconds - and hardly anything changed since then. Considering the overwhelming amount of information, available through the Internet, users rarely focus on one thing for a long time. And that’s a big problem for the website owners.

So if you want people to stay on your website and interact with it, you might consider adopting motion UI. The main concept of motion UI is that the design changes and adapts to a user’s viewpoint (i.e. when a user scrolls down or hovers the mouse). In this way, a website interacts with a customer and captivates their attention, promoting further engagement.

Motion UI is a SaaS library available by this link. It helps create CSS transitions and animations and can become a nice twist on your boring old design.

Rise of video

This one relates to the point above. Since most users have a short attention span, they need something to captivate their attention and engage them with the brand. Such a necessity led to the growing popularity of video content for audience acquisition and engagement.

We can already see the implemented videos on many websites and the only reason for that is that videos convert much better than static images (by about 80% better to be more precise). As well, the placement of videos in advertisements is another big trend as people better react to such videos. Thus, if you are thinking to reshape your marketing strategy and add something new to it, consider going with a professionally made video which can be used basically anywhere, from your homepage to Facebook ads.

Summary

The web development trends for 2020 seem to revolve around customers’ convenience which is great. So the key things that we’d recommend to watch for are quality, smooth performance, and of course, interesting and valuable content. Do not rush into implementing new fancy features if your initial content or service is boring and useless. So think value first - and then think about promoting it.