Web apps

2022-07-01

It’s important that you choose an idea which interests you. Interest is key to fuelling motivation which is crucial when making a web app. It takes effort building web apps and it’s important you have fun during the process.

Step 2 – Market Research

If a similar product exists, don’t worry. This can be a sign a market for your idea exists. Your future competitors have laid the groundwork, educated the market. It’s time for you to swoop in and steal the thunder.

Your Web App’s target market – Share your web app idea on forums related to your target market. If you know anyone who works within your target market, explain your idea to them. The more you talk and receive validation from your target market, the better.

SEO tool – I’d recommend MOZ/Ahrefs. Google’s keyword planner will suffice. Write a list of keywords relating to your web app. If it’s an ‘OKR tool’, use the tools to search ‘OKR tool’, ‘OKR app’, and ‘objectives and key results software’. If the SEO tool indicates there are lots of people searching for your keyword terms, this is a small indicator you have a target market.

2. Debenhams

When talking about brands that are transforming their shopping experience in the fashion industry, you can’t miss out on Debenham. The famous UK brand realized that even though their old website had increased mobile traffic, the mobile conversion rate wasn’t growing. So they concluded that it was time for a digital transformation, otherwise, their digital and overall growth would slow down soon. The brand looked for a solution that can offer a smooth experience for users, especially on mobile devices.

PWA was the answer for the team at Debenhams. After transforming their old website into a PWA, their effort surely paid off. They have improved the customer experience by removing blocks on a customer journey – slow pages, hard-to-navigate structure, complicated checkout process. Overall, Debenhams enjoyed a 40% increase in mobile revenue and a 20% increase in conversions.

Лучшее из двух миров #

По своей сути прогрессивные веб-приложения — это просто веб-приложения. Благодаря прогрессивному усовершенствованию в современных браузерах доступны новые возможности. С использованием сервис-воркеров и манифеста веб-приложений веб-приложения становятся надежными и устанавливаемыми. Если новые возможности окажутся недоступны, пользователи все равно смогут работать с основным функционалом.

Цифры не врут! Компании, запустившие прогрессивные веб-приложения, добились впечатляющих результатов. Например, в Twitter количество просматриваемых за сеанс страниц увеличилось на 65%, количество твитов — на 75%, а показатель отказов снизился на 20%, при этом размер приложения уменьшился более чем на 97%. После перехода на PWA трафик Nikkei увеличился в 2,3 раза, число подписок выросло на 58%, а количество активных пользователей за день — на 49%. Hulu перешла с платформо-зависимого десктопного приложения на прогрессивное веб-приложение, и количество повторных посещений увеличилось на 27%.

Прогрессивные веб-приложения предоставляют уникальную возможность создавать веб-интерфейсы, которые понравятся вашим пользователям. Используя новейшие веб-функции, обеспечивающие расширенные возможности и надежность, прогрессивные веб-приложения позволяют устанавливать то, что вы создаете, любым пользователям где угодно и на любых устройствах при помощи единой базы исходного кода.

Resources:

https://budibase.com/blog/how-to-make-a-web-app/
https://www.simicart.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-examples/
https://web.dev/what-are-pwas/
Web apps

It’s no secret that performance is vital to the success and profitability of any online venture. As a consequence, websites across industries are utilizing a new standard called Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) to improve their performance.

What is web application development

Web application development is the process involved with building a web application. It is more focused on interacting with the browser than standard engineering processes. Most cases of web application development will involve defining the problem, mocking-up the solution, engaging with users, adopting a framework/choosing a tool, and finally, building and testing the web application – in most cases, iteratively with users.

What is a web application

A web application, often referred to as a web app, is an interactive computer program built with web technologies (HTML, CSS, JS), which stores (Database, Files) and manipulates data (CRUD), and is used by a team or single user to perform tasks over the internet. CRUD is a popular acronym and is at the heart of web app development. It stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete. Web apps are accessed via a web browser such as Google Chrome, and often involve a login/signup mechanism.

Web applications vs website

The key difference is how we interact with each. Web applications are defined by their input – we create, read, update and delete data within a web application. Websites are defined by their output – we read the news, marketing information, FAQs on websites.

Progressive web applications

Progressive web applications are a newer type of web application which behaves like and often outperforms native applications. They are web applications which follow a slightly different methodology, and involve an additional set of technologies such as service workers, manifests, push notifications. Progressive web applications can be downloaded to your device, and stored on your homescreen which makes them accessible, and ‘native-like’, and unlike web applications they can be accessed and used offline.

6 examples of web applications

1. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform specialising in email marketing. They have been around since 2001 and their platform is a highly complex web application with a beautiful UI making the platform feel simple to use.

2. Google Docs

Google Docs, believe it or not, is a web application. It is also available as a mobile application. Created in 2012, Google Docs was born from the acquisition of a number of other web applications, and is great for creating, reading, updated, and deleting documents 😉

3. Notion

4. Airtable

Many refer to Airtable as the ‘Online Excel’. It is similar to Excel in UI but adds additional layers of functionality making it a powerful database solution for businesses. Airtable is a complex web application with thousands of users.

5. Xero

6. Salesforce

Salesforce is the number 1 SaaS product in the world from a revenue perspective. As a CRM, it is complex in nature making it a great example of a web application with multiple facets including dashboards, reports, tables, etc.

2. Debenhams

3. BMW

As a pioneering brand in the car industry, BMW proves that they aren’t shy away from new technologies, be it with their cars or their website. In order to improve the customer experience, the brand sought to provide quality and engaging content, which reflects their values.

The new BMW’s PWA definitely delivers users a ‘wow’ experience. The first thing that anyone would notice is the high-resolution images and videos, and the web loads pretty much instantly with all of these features (4X times faster than the old site). Their reports also showed other impressive numbers following the establishment of the PWA: 4X increase in people clicking from the homepage to a BMW sales site; 50% growth in mobile users and 49% more site visits compared to the old site.

Web application development courses

If you would like to learn how to build a web application, courses are a great option. Everyone learns differently. I learn best by doing; simply jumping in at the deep end and learn as I progress. I have listed the courses I feel will provide you with further context and learning when it comes to web application development. The courses I have listed below are for beginners.

Colt is a wonderful instructor and has a lot of experience, and helped thousands, if not millions of people. This course is rated a 4.6 from 151,568 ratings. Over 500,000 students have enrolled in the course. It only costs £29.99 too!

Learn frontend and backend development, and how to build a complete web application. Within this course you will master HTML, React, NodeJS. Codecademy charge a subscription to users. They have a free tier and offer a 7 day free trial – enough to complete the course if you cram it.

Resources:

https://budibase.com/blog/web-application-development/
https://www.simicart.com/blog/progressive-web-apps-examples/
https://budibase.com/blog/web-application-development/
Web apps

In the Application Shell model, server-side rendering should be used as much as possible and client-side progressive rendering should be used as an enhancement in the same way that we "enhance" the experience when service worker is supported. There are many ways this can ultimately be approached.

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How does it work?
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That means, that all your app content control is coming from your website and you can do amazing stuff like create a special home page for your app or even a brand new template for your apps that will make your apps look different from your website.

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Here are some important points:

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# Principles

# Web app manifest

The Manifest for Web applications is a simple JSON file that gives you, the developer, the ability to control how your app appears to the user in the areas that they would expect to see apps (for example the device home screen), direct what the user can launch and more importantly how they can launch it

The manifest enables your web app to have a more native-like presence on the user’s home screen. It allows the app to be launched in full-screen mode (without a URL bar being present), provides control over the screen orientation and in recent versions of Chrome on Android supports defining a Splash Screen and theme color for the address bar. It is also used to define a set of icons by size and density used for the aforementioned Splash screen and home screen icon.

In my personal projects, I rely on realfavicongenerator to generate the correctly sized icons for both the web app manifest and for use across iOS, desktop and so on. The favicons Node module is also able to achieve a similar output as part of your build process.

Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Opera etc.) support web app manifests today with Firefox actively developing support and Edge listing them as under consideration. WebKit/Safari have not yet posted public signals about their intents to implement the feature just yet.

# "Add to Home Screen" banner

# Service worker for offline caching

It wakes up when it gets an event and runs only as long as it needs to process it. Service worker allows you to use the Cache API to cache resources and can be used to provide users with an offline experience.

Service workers are powerful for offline caching but they also offer significant performance wins in the form of instant loading for repeat visits to your site or web app. You can cache your application shell so it works offline and populate its content using JavaScript.

Our team also maintains a number of service worker helper utilities and build tools that we find useful for reducing the overhead in getting service worker setup. They’re listed over on Service Worker Libraries. The two main ones are:

Chrome, Opera and Firefox have all implemented support for service worker with Edge having positive public signals about interest in the feature. Safari briefly mentioned interest in it via one engineer’s proposed five year plan.

# Push notifications for re-engagement

Effectively, you can build web apps that users can engage with outside of a tab. The browser can be closed and they don’t even need to be actively using your web app to engage with your experience. The feature requires both service worker and a web app manifest, building on some of the features summarized earlier.

# Layering in advanced features

Additional features coming to the web platform such as Background Syncronisation (for data sync with a server even when your web app is closed) and Web Bluetooth (for talking to Bluetooth devices from your web app) can also be layered into your Progressive Web App in this manner.

# Framework-friendly

There’s really nothing stopping you from applying any of the above principles to an existing application or framework you’re building with. A few other principles worth keeping in mind while building your Progressive Web App are the RAIL user-centric performance model and FLIP based animations.

I’m hopeful that during 2016, we’ll see an increasing number of boilerplates and seed projects organically baking in support for Progressive Web Apps as a core feature. Until then, the barrier to adding these features to your own apps isn’t very high and are IMHO, quite worth the effort.

Native, Web App, or Hybrid: Which Should You Choose?

Device features. Although web apps can take advantage of some features, native apps (and the native components of the hybrid apps) have access to the full paraphernalia of device-specific features, including GPS, camera, gestures, and notifications.

Offline functioning. A native app is best if your app must work when there is no connectivity. In-browser caching is available in HTML5, but it’s still more limited than what you can get when you go native.

Discoverability. Web apps win the prize on discoverability. Content is a lot more discoverable on the web than in an app: When people have a question or an information need, they go to a search engine, type in their query, and choose a page from the search results. They do not go to the app store, search for an app, download it, and then try to find their answer within the app. Although there are app aficionados who may fish for apps in app stores, most users don’t like installing and maintaining apps (and also wasting space on their device), and will install an app only if they expect to use it often.

Speed. Native apps win the speed competition. In 2012 Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook’s biggest mistake had been betting on the mobile web and not going native. Up to that point, the Facebook app had been a hybrid app with an HTML core; in 2012 it was replaced with a truly native app. Responsiveness is key to usability.

Installation. Installing a native or hybrid app is a hassle for users: They need to be really motivated to justify the interaction cost. “Installing” a web app involves creating a bookmark on the home screen; this process, while arguably simpler than downloading a new app from an app store, is less familiar to users, as people don’t use bookmarks that much on mobile.

Maintenance. Maintaining a native app can be complicated not only for users, but also for developers (especially if they have to deal with multiple versions of the same information on different platforms): Changes have to be packaged in a new version and placed in the app store. On the other hand, maintaining a web app or a hybrid app is as simple as maintaining a web page, and it can be done as often or as frequently as needed.

Platform independence. While different browsers may support different versions of HTML5, if platform independence is important, you definitely have a better chance of achieving it with web apps and hybrid apps than with native apps. As discussed before, at least parts of the code can be reused when creating hybrid or web apps.

Content restrictions, approval process, and fees. Dealing with a third party that imposes rules on your content and design can be taxing both in terms of time and money. Native and hybrid apps must pass approval processes and content restrictions imposed by app stores, whereas the web is free for all. Not surprisingly, the first web apps came from publications such as Playboy, who wanted to escape Apple’s prudish content censure. And buying a subscription within an iOS app means that 30% of that subscription cost goes to Apple, a big dent in the publishers’ budget.

Development cost. It’s arguably cheaper to develop hybrid and web apps, as these require skills that build up on previous experience with the web. NN/g clients often find that going fully native is a lot more expensive, as it requires more specialized talent. But, on the other hand, HTML5 is fairly new, and good knowledge of it, as well as a good understanding of developing for the mobile web and hybrid apps are also fairly advanced skills.

User Interface. Last but not least, if one of your priorities is providing a user experience that is consistent with the operating system and with the majority of the other apps available on that platform, then native apps are the way to go. That doesn’t mean that you cannot provide a good mobile user experience with a web app or a hybrid app — it just means that the graphics and the visuals will not be exactly the same as those with which users may be already accustomed, and that it will be harder to take advantage of the mobile strengths and mitigate the mobile limitations.

To summarize, native apps, hybrid apps, or web apps are all ways to cater to the needs of the mobile user. There is no unique best solution: each of these has their strengths and weaknesses. The choice of one versus the other depends on each company’s unique needs.

Raluca Budiu is Director of Research at Nielsen Norman Group, where she consults for clients from a variety of industries and presents tutorials on mobile usability, designing interfaces for multiple devices, quantitative usability methods, cognitive psychology for designers, and principles of human-computer interaction. She also serves as editor for the articles published on NNgroup.com. Raluca coauthored the NN/g reports on tablet usability, mobile usability, iPad usability, and the usability of children’s websites, as well as the book Mobile Usability. She holds a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Resources:

https://web2application.com/
https://developer.chrome.com/blog/getting-started-pwa/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-native-apps/