Web development trends every CTO expects to see in 2021

Posted by olivia cuthbert on April 14th, 2021

The Web has evolved considerably. Unlike natural evolution that happens quietly over millions of years, web development growth is rapid and noisy. One can't help but notice the change in the user experience on websites these days.

How has the user experience on the Web changed in recent years? Where is a round-up of the web development trends that will accelerate in 2021 that technical directors need to know about?

| 1. Websites will increasingly integrate AI and ML applications

In the digital world, websites are like virtual storefronts that provide customers with the information they are looking for. For quite some time, f-form content layouts provided website visitors with information about the company and its offerings until recently.

While this is fine from a practical point of view, it cannot customize static website content to meet individual users' needs and wishes. Furthermore, it may not provide the information the user is looking for. The result of this experience is an increased website bounce rate. Ultimately, you could end up in a spiral that damages your website's SEO prospects and reduces your online presence.

 It is where chatbots and live chat software can have a positive impact. These are mainly programs based on artificial intelligence or machine learning that can answer visitors' questions with predefined answers. Machine learning allows them to continuously learn from conversations with users and quickly provide the correct answer the user is looking for.

Such chatbots' spontaneity will undoubtedly lead to a positive user experience, which will affect the business's overall performance.

In a nutshell, the future of website creation will enrich by the advanced integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

| 2. Websites will be able to support voice search

Voice search was included in the world by Google in 2011. While adoption was low in the early days, today, the voice search volume has skyrocketed due to the massive adoption of wearables, IoT devices, and intelligent device-like devices.

Even in 2018, at the most negligible, 27% of the world's online population used voice search on mobile. Now, with the proliferation of voice-enabled virtual assistants, that volume is likely to double or triple.

Voice search has grown popular because it is easier, faster, and more conversational than text search. 

What does this mean for web development? Web developers can keep in mind how search engines will analyze their pages' content to find and provide information to voice search users, increasing the chances of a page appearing as an intelligent snippet. 

They have raised the bar by creating schema tags and structured data that allow search engine spiders to understand the website's information. Besides, in the future,  should write site content to directly answer users' questions in a conversational tone.

| 3. Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) will overtake mobile applications.

Mobile applications can provide a personalized experience for the user. However, they require the user to stay online in the application to personalize the experience. Besides, most mobile applications are cumbersome and consume many system resources to provide a positive user experience. 

These applications can burden their devices ' performance for a large segment of users who use mobile devices with modest specifications. As a result, they manage to download, use and uninstall applications at their convenience, which is certainly not a good thing for mobile applications, especially for companies whose revenue model base on daily active users. 

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are an intermediate platform between mobile apps and websites. Angular,  Polymer, React are some of the development frameworks that enable the creation of PWAs. 

PWAs offer the same user experience as an app while giving the user the ability to stay offline. Besides, PWAs can also send push notifications to capture the user's intent even if they are not online in the application. These reduce page load speeds and increase user engagement, which can serve other business purposes.

Pinterest is a real example of a well-executed PWA. The online imageboard was able to increase user time spent by 40% with PWA help. Pinterest's Android and iOS mobile apps were 9.6MB and 56MB in size. With the help of PWA, I reduced it to a tiny 150 KB. 

| 4. There will be more interest in developing in API mode.

On the Internet, no application is an isolated island. Each application must work seamlessly with many other third-party applications (even if they are competitors) to function at the highest level. Furthermore, it is this integration that allows the end-user to get the most out of the application. 

APIs remain a web developer's best friend. They allow the creation of web applications that can easily exchange information back and forth between multiple applications. This free provision of APIs will enable startups to integrate their websites and mobile applications with powerful digital tools such as Google Maps, a Twitter news feed, etc. 

APIs have become so popular that developing API-first applications would be the best solution. There is a need for applications to co-exist and share their capabilities to provide the best possible user experience. In doing so, it also offers several benefits, including cost savings, rapid scalability, and competitive advantage.

| 5. Mobile user interface design provides a better web experience.

Modern websites have evolved to the point where they can have smooth interfaces and transitions that resemble mobile app users. We are talking about changes and animations that go beyond the PWA. Motion UI is an independent library of UI animations and transitions that can animate a digital product. They can create a unique user experience unique to the brand or company. 

Mobile UI design gives web developers the freedom to use

| 6. AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

As discussed earlier, a website (and its landing pages) is a virtual shop window for your business. Landing pages need to provide a first-class user experience. While PWAs, Motion UI, and the like can help improve the user experience, there is another frontline of web development that can help solidify a positive UX. It is page load speed.

Page load speed is critical for SEO, reducing bounce rates and increasing average order value (AOV) in e-commerce.

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a Google project introduced to the world in 2015 AMP instant page, with no load time. It is a technology that enables you to create websites that load. It uses code snippets embedded in your website's background to make it load instantly. It said that AMP pages load in 2 seconds, while non-AMP pages take between 6 and 22 seconds.

| 7. Cybersecurity becomes a top priority

Cybersecurity has forever been a difficult challenge for businesses and web developers, and in 2020, with the advent of COVID-19, this challenge has reached new heights. The unexpected attack on the SolarWinds supply chain served as a deadly warning to cybersecurity criminals that they were out of reach. 

According to S&P Global's 451 Research, cybersecurity is more than a top priority for most companies today, with stresses such as business continuity, automation, and user experience taking a back seat.

As remote working and distributed teams become more commonplace, so does the need for cybersecurity. Your website is one of the places where you can strengthen your cybersecurity defenses. By ensuring you are preparing for DDoS, Main in the Middle, and other attacks, you can protect your website and your business from cybersecurity threats.

| Call to action

If you haven't reviewed your website and its user experience in the past few years, now is the time to do

Several web development trends can help you improve your site's performance. A top web development company in India can help you choose the right technology to make your website a growing force in your business.