Trends in Web Development 2022
In this article, you will learn about the hottest web development trends and breakthroughs that have already happened or are predicted to happen in 2021.
Technologies are fast-evolving, particularly now. We can see over 7 million websites on the internet, and the number is still quickly growing. They become more complicated from the technical perspective and easier to navigate from the user experience perspective.
To keep abreast of the online competition, companies must have a remarkable web presence and follow the latest web dev trends. To assist businesses in this challenge, we have collected the most important web development trends 2021.
What to Expect from The Industry?
The industry is going to surprise us with more dynamic, voice-powered, AI-driven web interfaces. The websites are predicted to become even easier to navigate and faster to upload thanks to the latest web technologies. We will see more websites with a dark-themed design since it has become a new trend in 2020 and still is evolving in 2021. Technologies like voice recognition, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and new security protocols will enrich modern websites. Now, let’s take a closer look at each of these trends.
Progressive Web Apps
Progressive apps are one of the first trends in web development trends which we will consider today. They look like websites but operate similarly to mobile apps. The main objective of progressive apps is to provide a cross-platform experience for users. Many experts say they perform much better than usual websites and have a significantly higher conversion rate.
Famous brands like Amazon, Forbes, and Twitter have already developed their mobile-like experiences. It helped these companies revolutionize their user experience and improve the overall online presence. The trend of PWAs is expected to continue growing in 2021, as the number of mobile users is quickly increasing.
Dark UI Design
A dark-theme user interface has become a new website development trend. Why go dark? Because it looks more stylish for many users than white UI, it’s healthier for the user’s eyes, and it prolongs the battery life if watched from mobile since fewer pixels are using the energy. The world’s biggest brands like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and YouTube have already created dark interfaces for their applications. This is one of the UX trends that are predicted to evolve in 2021 too.
AI-Driven Chatbots
AI-driven chatbots have revolutionized an online customer experience this year. They allow staying in touch with the company round-the-clock and provide the feeling of a closer connection with a brand since you can always message it and be instantly answered.
AI-powered chatbots are usually incorporated into a website to help the user navigate it or provide useful tips or necessary information. Bots quickly learn and become smarter in their answers thanks to the ability to process millions of previous user interactions. With the advent of AI, website chatbots have turned into a huge web development trend.
Single-Page Websites
There is no need to switch between different pages since everything can be displayed in one place. It is how a single-page site works. Complex website architectures and structures have become obsolete. They are simply replaced by much better and easier to navigate alternatives such as single-page websites. What’s important is that they are less expensive to develop for business owners than their many-page websites, although single-page websites are new in web development.
Single-page websites aim to serve a target audience with quite limited content. However, that’s not a con but rather an advantage since it allows taking the user straight to the point and provide all the necessary information faster.
Voice-Powered Interfaces
Voice recognition is one of the latest trends in web development. The fast evolution of the Internet of Things has brought voice technology to the top and triggered its faster development. It has found its reflection in web development too. In 2021, we can see the increasing number of voice-powered interfaces. Modern websites should be optimized for voice search to stay competitive in the online world. People start searching things by “voice” even more often, so incorporating voice recognition technology will become the must-have for websites.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, particularly data storage, without the need for managing it directly. This concept is commonly referred to as a data storage or data center that is available for different users in the online mode.
Cloud computing is named the future of web development 2021. It is one of the trending web technologies today. It allows avoiding data loss and data overload. Cloud computing is one of the latest in web development breakthroughs allowing us to make websites more robust and lightweight.
Thanks to this technology, they are much faster and easier to upload. Moreover, it allows you to significantly reduce the development cost. Some of the most popular cloud computing examples are Google Cloud Functions, AWS Lambda, and Azure Functions.
Website Security
Website security advances are not new trends in web development. However, they are so important for the over website health and functionality that we mention them here as a separate trend. According to recent studies, around 50,000 websites are breached by hackers daily. And it’s sad statistics since most new businesses have an online web presence and process sensitive customer information.
To avoid data breaches, HTTPS protocol has been named the essential data security standard for websites. It allows preventing the unrecognized interactions with third-party services and mitigates many security risks. Website security will be enhanced by technologies like multi-factor identification, biometric authentication, secure remote access to systems. We also see the increasing demand for using VPN software for corporate purposes.
Moreover, website cybersecurity will rise as a trend because it’s predicted to be highly emphasized in the media to encourage employees and site owners to run security tests, put up firewalls, and determine current security vulnerabilities.
Native Applications
In 2021, native applications are expected to dominate the web development industry. The main peculiarity and advantage of native applications is that they provide an opportunity for the user to work offline if there is a problem with the internet connection. Native apps are usually downloaded on the phone, and they continue working in both cases, whether there is an internet connection or not. It allows significantly increase productivity and make it less dependent on connectivity issues.
Native applications have been in high demand in mobile development in recent years. However, they are also predicted to start dominating the web development industry as well. In comparison with hybrid applications, native apps can provide more outstanding performance and seamless experience, as they are initially created for specific systems and are well-adjusted to them. Actually, it has become the big reason why more and more companies have started investing in building separate native applications for iOS and Android platforms.
Motion UI Design
Motion UI design or web animation has been a big trend last year, and it still rocks this year too. Dynamic web interfaces drive the user excitement, attract attention, make the user-technology interaction more enjoyable, and help the brand to stand out from its competitors. Motion UI design makes it possible for web applications to respond to user actions.
Modern users don’t want to spend time understanding how to navigate the website or web application. They want the interface to be intuitive at maximum and provide an enjoyable online experience. Here is where motion design deploys its power and demonstrates its importance. It makes a website journey smooth, seamless, and intuitive by navigating the user through micro-animations.
This year, motion UI design will be enriched by the examples such as interactive pop-ups, creative pull-down menus, scrolling, charts, transitions between pages, background animation, interactive UI decorations, and more.
API-First Development
While software developers have been focused more on the product itself, things have changed a little bit. Product’s interoperability with other devices and systems has been the object of concern just afterward. Today, software engineers take an API-first approach to product development, caring about its ability to connect and communicate with other systems. In our overconnected world, it has become very important, and the product that fails in this term takes a serious risk of facing a poor product-market-fit.
An API-first approach puts the user first and provides many other advantages, for example, allowing two software teams to run the development simultaneously. It also lets you decrease time to market considerably.
Wrapping Up
We have considered the latest web designing technologies and the biggest web technology trends 2021 quickly rushing to us. From progressive apps, dark-themed interfaces, and AI-powered chatbots to voice recognition technology, single-page websites, cloud computing, API-first approach, motion user interface design, no-code/low-code, and enhanced cybersecurity — all these new web technologies 2021 will dominate the websites we scroll through every day.
Each of them promises an even larger web development progress this year. And we all are excited to see how they will deploy on our screens and websites very soon. We hope that this article will help you get a more profound understanding of the web development landscape and easier navigate it.
Originally published at https://fireart.studio on February 2, 2021