Technology is ever advancing, especially in the field of web development. There is constant growth and development and it is important to stay ahead in the competition by staying up to date with the latest trends and technologies of web development.
In order to increase and maintain audience engagement, a developer must be well versed with what is currently the best technological version possible of a website that will help in giving users a better and customised experience.
Some website development technologies that are most likely to trend in 2019 are :-
Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots
The artificial Intelligence industry has grown tremendously in the past few years. The largest companies like Google and Apple are using artificial intelligence now to provide a better customer experience with their conversational interfaces and voice assistants
Artificial Intelligence and chatbots were trending in the previous year and will continue to be an emerging web development trend in 2019 as well.
Chatbots are basically interactive tools that help customers in clearing their doubts and answering their questions that are backed up by examples and instinctive sources. Chatbots help websites in gaining popularity as well as better engagement.
Chatbots are increasingly getting smarter and more efficient with the help of artificial intelligence. Some examples of the most widely used chatbots are Apple’s Siri, Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa.
Progressive Web Apps
Progressive Web Apps or PWA’s have grown as one of the most talked about technological shifts in web development. A Progressive Web App is a mix of regular web pages and a mobile application. These are websites that you can normally open on a browser but it behaves more like an app downloaded from the App Store or Play Store.
Users can add these websites to their homepages like they’d install an app. PWA’s are fast loading, they can work offline and are engaging.
PWA’s will be trending in 2019 since most people do not install multiple apps on their phones anymore. Progressive Web Apps eliminates the need to have an app installed on a smartphone, hence making it a preferred choice.
Motion UI
Websites that still have static UI’s or flash-based graphics as a part of their design can no longer keep users engaged for a long time. On the other hand, websites that have Motion UI in their design including simple yet interactive animations and graphics are gaining web users’ attention now.
Motion UI is a stand-alone SASS library for creating interactive transitions and animations easily. It helps developers in designing animated elements and in integrating them efficiently into a website. More and more websites are using Motion UI now keeping in mind the reduced attention span of humans as well which has reduced rapidly in the last few years.
Motion UI will be an emerging trend in the coming years making websites and apps more user friendly, interactive and interesting.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP’s)
In the recent years, the number of people who access websites from their mobile phones has increased remarkably. Websites that take a longer time to load compared to those that load very easily and quickly lead to reduced user traffic and engagement on the website.
Accelerated Mobile Pages solves the problem by increasing the loading speed of a webpage regardless of the internet speed.
AMP’s help in simplifying coding and makes websites load 10 times faster on smartphones. Since more than 70% of website traffic comes from mobile users, it is important to customise websites accordingly.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is different from virtual reality, it uses fabricated images and layers them over reality. Users can view the real world through their smartphones augmented with digital assets and insights with AR.
Augmented Reality is being used by developers more and more to optimise user experience on mobile as well as desktop. It is an emerging trend and will continue to be used by web designers to help users engage more with products and services. AR is also become readily available to developers with compatible plugins like WordPressVR.
JavaScript Framework
JavaScript is a technology that is constantly changing, it is one of the most widely used programming language used by developers. React, Angular and Vue.js – three top most preferred JavaScript frameworks have been growing exponentially year after year.
The framework React is most likely to dominate in 2019 since it has received a higher rating and preference by developers. It is the most developer friendly front-end framework and it continues to improve each year.
Push Notifications
Push Notifications might sound like an old concept, but lately it has emerged as a trend as web push notifications. Websites use this feature to re-target previously visited users of a website. Users can opt-in for timely updates from the sites that they love.
It gives websites an opportunity to re-engage with users with relevant and customized content that will prove to be beneficial in increasing engagement as well as conversion.
In conclusion, new and emerging technologies are opening up new opportunities for web developers. It is a must for a web designer to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies in order to create websites that are more user-friendly and help websites in gaining better engagement
