Thinking Ahead: Top Features Your Web Application Needs to Keep Up in 2024

Is your business prepared for 2024’s web landscape? With the pace of progress accelerating, your web application strategy impacts engagement and longevity more than you know. Companies that want to thrive have to go beyond chasing the latest trends. Focusing on the right innovations at the right time creates experiences that convert and evolve with user expectations.

At Paragon, we’ve identified key opportunities coming that forward-thinking brands are leveraging today. Mobile advances, AI capabilities and cloud infrastructure can future-proof your web applications while making life easier for your customers. By tailoring these capabilities to your specific needs, your digital presence can build deeper loyalty, converting more visitors now while cementing your relevance. It all comes down to understanding what matters for your market and cultivating the competitive advantage you need to stay steps ahead. Ready to explore adaptable, individualized experiences that don’t just delight users but grow your business in the years to come? This insight is your roadmap to the future.

Embracing Mobile-First Design

The prevalence of mobile usage continues to rise, with some projections estimating that over 75% of internet traffic will come from mobile devices (i.e. phones or tablets) by 2024. To reach and engage users in the coming years, web applications need to prioritize mobile-friendly responsive design. For example, an e-commerce site tailored to highlight mobile checkout and one-click purchases will provide better customer experiences and convert “just browsing” into sales.

Serving desktop and mobile users through the same application by optimizing for cross-device functionality can also dramatically improve user experiences. Features like progressive enhancement to load faster on mobile, flexible UI layouts adapting to any screen size, and continuous cross-device syncing of user activity will allow a web application to shine on any device.

Integrating AI and ML Capabilities

The advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology opens new possibilities for features that make interactions smarter and more contextual. For instance, AI could allow an estimating and quoting tool to factor in individual customer data and history to provide personalized price and timeline recommendations. Chatbots leveraging natural language processing can handle inquiries and requests in a more conversational, efficient manner. The possibilities of how you can engage with your clients are endless and ever growing.

As AI capabilities grow more robust by 2024, integrating the technology thoughtfully will help future web applications engage users on an individualized level. By serving users highly personalized, proactive recommendations and automation based on their usage patterns and behaviors, web applications can provide predictive experiences that exceed expectations.

Transitioning to Progressive Web Apps

Progressive web application architecture offers attractive benefits like shortcut icons, offline functionality and push notification options traditionally only seen in native mobile apps. By 2024, shifting web applications like project management systems or inventory trackers to progressive designs can provide better responsiveness and deliver app-like experiences directly within the browser, no download required.

The appeal for users lies in faster load times, easiness to discover, and higher engagement — all factors that will allow progressive web apps to stand out. For example, progressive web apps work reliably even with intermittent internet connectivity, a key benefit for field services. The ability to send updates via push notifications to mobile devices can also keep users connected to essential information.

Prioritizing Cloud Hosting and Serverless Computing

As cloud technology progresses, migrating infrastructure fully to the cloud unlocks scalability and reduces overhead for web applications. Even for industries built on confidentiality and redundancy, the cloud offers some of the best options available. Built-in automation, abundant and flexible storage capacity and streamlined deployments will provide performance and experiential advantages.

Additionally, “serverless” cloud computing minimizes backend complexity. By leveraging cloud vendor handles, web applications can save substantially on resources to scale seamlessly, react swiftly to traffic spikes, and provide low-latency experiences that will exceed user expectations for 2024 and keep their services steps ahead. This leaves your developers with the time to continue growing your web applications features, instead of focusing on maintenance.

Crafting Cutting-Edge Business Applications

Doing business in 2023 can get expensive. It can be challenging to navigate which technological capabilities to invest in to meet shifting market landscapes in the coming years. You want to build a web application that is going to last and isn’t a depreciating expenditure. That’s where an experienced web application development partner makes all the difference.

At Paragon Cloud Consulting, we specialize in crafting customized web and mobile applications (as well as cloud migration) for business that balance meeting today’s needs with embracing innovations that will set you apart down the road. Our team stays on the pulse of advances in areas like AI, cloud infrastructure, and mobile-first design so we can advise and apply the latest best practices suited for long-term gains.

By taking advantage of our forward-thinking web application development and migration services today, your company’s vital online presences and tools can continue delivering value and results for your evolving requirements in 2024 and the years beyond. We remove the guesswork in leveraging technology advances so your web applications provide lasting competitive advantages.

Contact us today to future-proof your web presence with an assessment from our software architects and developers. Planning ahead is the key to leveraging the right innovations at the right time. Our actionable roadmap and guidance will ready your web application to excel both now and for the business challenges to come.