The Top Web Development Trends In 2020
As of January 2020 the internet connects 4.54 billion people from all different walks of life. It’s safe to say it’s both here to stay and that web development is a constantly evolving industry. However many people are still developing for the internet of yesterday, so today lets discuss some of the biggest trends in web development in 2020. And maybe one of these could be helpful in your next project.
SINGLE PAGE APPLICATIONS
Single page applications are web applications that interact with the user by rewriting parts of the current page rather than loading entire new pages. There are many reasons why you should consider SPA’s. They can be helpful in simplifying navigation, they can greatly improve the speed of your website, and can improve your caching capabilities. If you’re a web developer don’t sleep on this trend, educate yourself on it.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Artificial Intelligence is a booming, vast industry. According to Gartner, AI is predicted to reach $3.9 trillion by 2022. AI is applicable to so many different industries, whether you’re Starbucks using AI to provide personalized experiences to your customers, or your in medicine and incorporating AI into an app to assist with consultations. The possiblities are huge and highly lucrative. If you’re a web developer in 2020 you need to be considering how AI can be encorporated into your projects to assist your clients.
CHAT BOTS
In the next five years it’s predicted that chatbots will become the number one application for consumers across all AI integrations. Hence why it’s something you might want to get interested in. It’s worth noting that many people still prefer speaking to a human, but it’s hard to ignore this trend and it’s understandable when you consider the costs of employing people. 48% of consumers currently prefer to contact a company via a live chat feature. It’s pretty safe to say this is a new and booming trend and it could be worth your time doing some research and adding it to your future web projects.
VOICE SEARCH OPTIMIZATION
Between 2008 and 2016 voice search queries multiplied by 35 times. Whether you’re a fan of assistants like Siri, Alexa, Cortana or Google Assistant, there really is no denying that more and more people are adopting this technology and there is no sign of it slowing down. When 20% of Google searches are voice searches it’s safe to say that it’s time to take this trend seriously and begin thinking about adopting voice into our web projects. Chrome and Firefox both support this technology and it’s relatively easy to add a voice search recognition API to your websites now.
ACCELERATED MOBILE PAGES
In 2019 Google unveiled their mobile-first index which takes precedence over their desktop index and will serve the most appropriate pages based on the device you’re searching on. Google has released an open source initiative that leverages stripped down HTML files to create fast, mobile friendly copies of webpages. This is officially known as Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). When you consider that webpage load speed is a major ranking factor in Google’s indexes and web page loading speed is crucial when you consider conversion of traffic, it really is a no brainer to adopt AMP in 2020.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
In 2018 it’s estimated that 52% of the webs traffic came from mobile devices. In 2020, this figure is undoubtably higher which is why responsive designs are no longer an optional nice to have, but rather a must have. If you aren’t optimizing your websites to work on all screen sizes, then you’re undoubtably missing out on a large portion of the web market.
DARK MODE
Dark mode has been a growing trend over the last few years with many popular websites adding support for it. iOS and Android have also adopted this feature. Research has shown that dark mode provides less eye strain and it can also be beneficial for saving energy. So not only does it look cool and make elements of your websites stand out more, but it also has some real practical advantages too. Undoubtably this trend is only going to grow throughout 2020.
Sources: Coredna, Shopify, The Verge, Landerapp, Klyp, Digital Clarity Group, Forbes
