Feb 15, 2021
14 min readDo you want to build a successful and viable web solution? Implement the most recent trends in web development for 2021 to increase engagement and grow your business.
The modern world is steadily developing, and new web technologies emerge every day. These new trends offer a lot of opportunities to entrepreneurs who want to engage more users and stay competitive in the market.
In this article, we want to share the top 9 latest trends in web application development in 2021 that you should know about. By implementing some of them, you will be able to create modern web solutions, be it a SaaS app, online marketplace, or a minimum viable product that later will be turned into a fully-featured application.
1. Progressive web applications
Among the top trends in web development, we should mention the PWA technology. A PWA is an application that works as a website with an almost full native mobile app experience. It runs independently of the browser and interacts with the customer as a native application.
Let’s look into the pros of PWA development in more detail and see what positive changes they bring to both users and business owners:
- Reduced development and support costs;
- Quicker launch to the market;
- Easier distribution;
- Smooth installation;
- Saving device power and storage;
- Seamless maintenance and updating.
Are you curious about this latest website development technology? Then check our thorough article to learn about progressive web application development costs.
Why should you care about progressive web apps?
According to Ericsson’s research, global mobile data traffic is projected to become 4.5x larger and reach a monthly amount of 226 EB in 2026. It means that people will start using their mobile devices more to satisfy different needs. Moreover, by 2026, 5G networks will carry 54% of total mobile data traffic that will provide faster and more responsive mobile services.
Although this technology is comparatively new, PWA development is not rocket science. At the same time, it allows businesses to stay competitive in the modern market. That is why all the web apps Codica team builds are progressive by default.
For example, here is an activity booking marketplace built by our team.
One of the important aspects of building a PWA is creating a UX/UI design that emphasizes user experience. Progressive web apps should be as close as possible to native apps in their look and feel, and it is important to create intuitive UX and visually-appealing UI design.
Finding an extra way to engage with your mobile users is a sound investment in your relationship with potential or existing clients. Thus, the PWA technology looks like an interesting trend for businesses.
2. Artificial intelligence (AI) and bots
AI assistants and bots can learn, collect data, or solve difficult issues. This domain is considered one of the most influential technologies that shape the future of web development. Thus, the community demand for AI-enabled communication will become more widespread in 2021.
Nowadays, we can see dozens of AI chatbots, virtual assistants (Alexa, Siri, Cortana), and voice bots as the latest web industry trends. These technologies allow businesses to engage and upgrade human interaction. When building a marketplace platform, chatbots will help you enhance the digital customer experience.
AI chatbots help millions of people and lots of businesses perform operations faster by using text or voice chats. Nowadays, it is very important to consider the latest website development technology trends. And in view of the spread of AI chatbots, it is crucial for businesses of all sizes to provide continuous customer engagement.
Let’s look at the statistics that leave no doubt whether the future of web development will support AI-powered chatbots.
Do you want to know how to build a chatbot for your company’s needs using Vue.js and Ruby on Rails? You can check our article on how we created a time tracking Slack bot that helped boost our team’s productivity.
3. Voice search
Back in the days, information was all about the text. But in 2021, more and more Internet users prefer communicating with audio over using text information. That is why the Web uses audio and speech interpretation as one of the most rapidly emerging technologies in web development.
Juniper Research predicts that by 2022, 55% of all households in the world will have voice assistants. But it is not confined only to virtual home assistants such as Google Home, Alexa, or Siri.
Recent web development technology trends stress the importance of voice optimization for websites. Most companies want to ride the wave that will shape the future of the Web. That is why they enhance their digital products with the capabilities of voice search.
Voice search optimization brings many advantages both for users and business owners. The main benefits of using this technology are as follows:
- Saving time and allowing a user to order more products;
- Serving as a source of customer behavior analytics.
You may wonder how to optimize your website for voice search. Below, we have listed the measures you can take to follow this latest trend.
- Use natural language with direct answers to specific questions.
- Draw on schema markup and rich snippets for better indexing by search engines.
- Optimize your website content by eliminating duplicate pages and updating important information.
- Control domain authority (DA) of your website and other traditional search rankings.
- Use the Web Speech API that facilitates the implementation of speech recognition to your website.
Voice search and navigation is one of the most interesting latest website technology trends you should not miss. It has already changed the Internet, and experts anticipate this technology to enhance its impact even more.
4. Serverless architecture
2020 was marked by the enforced work-from-home shift due to the spread of Covid-19. That is why cloud SaaS solutions have expanded even more during this year. And the Web, as one of the most rapidly evolving domains, documented a large increase in the demand for serverless architecture.
The State of the cloud report by Flexera states that 98% of enterprises use at least one public or private cloud. It only proves that cloud architecture is one of the main future trends in web development. You can see the illustration below.
Serverless computing, being one of the most interesting current web trends, can boast of many benefits. The main advantages of this approach are as follows:
- Enhanced scalability;
- Faster time-to-market;
- Cost-effectiveness;
- Delegated maintenance.
Do you want to know more about cloud computing? You can clear things up by reading our article on the main cloud computing models: SaaS, PaaS and IaaS.
Serverless development implies that programmers build and run their web apps without a need to think about servers. In fact, these apps still run on servers, but they are supported by cloud providers.
This way, the business logic of serverless software systems is executed by the provider, and the same goes with server management. Among the serverless computing services providers, we should mention Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
5. Motion UI
This web development trend falls within the design of web products. According to the Salesforce Report, 84% of customers consider the design of the website as important as the actual product it offers.
To a greater extent, web design is not about fancy pictures. It is about creating intuitive and responsive interfaces that your users will love. Motion UI is based on extensive research, and when you use it properly in your website’s design, it can boost page conversion rate easily.
According to [the Chartbeat research] (https://time.com/12933/what-you-think-you-know-about-the-web-is-wrong/), you have less than 15 seconds to grab the attention of your website readers. And Motion UI, being one of the latest web development trends, is great at coping with this task.
Source: ZURB
Motion UI is a powerful front-end library for the creation of customizable animated UI elements. With it, you can construct modular scrolling, background animations, or animated charts, etc. All of these and many other elements will help express your unique style and keep your user entertained. Motion UI turns out to be even more helpful in progressive web app design.
Also, Motion UI helps boost your web app rankings in search results. This way, Motion UI is one of the most important modern trends in web application development that make the UI design process simpler and faster.
6. Single-page applications
Single-page apps (SPA) remain one of the most important current technology trends in web development. A SPA is a JavaScript-based web application. It avoids loading separate HTML pages from a server to show a certain page to a visitor. Instead, a SPA loads only markup and data to dynamically render them on a single web page.
Using this latest website development technology, visitors feel like they browse a single page for all their needs. Among the most famous single-page applications, we can mention Gmail, Google Drive, Facebook, and Twitter. Besides, SPA technology can boast of great cross-platform nature as it is supported by most devices.
The main benefits of SPAs include:
- Simplified and streamlined development;
- Increased performance;
- Reduced interferences related to page reloading.
It is a perfect choice when you create responsive websites with the support of mobile, tablet & desktop apps. The latest developments on SPAs are made using React library that make it functional and suitable for hybrid apps.
All this makes single-page applications one of the top web development trends as of 2021.
7. Mobile-friendly website
The rapid growth of mobile users explains why the mobile-first approach will affect the future of web development vastly. According to DataReportal, the number of mobile users worldwide is 5.22 billion as of January 2021.
For this reason, the future of the Web depends on mobile-friendliness largely. It allows businesses to cover a larger amount of mobile users and boost conversions.
What does this latest trend of web technologies mean? In fact, mobile-friendly website content looks appealing not only on desktop computers but also on mobile devices. That means that the text is easily readable, links and navigation are clickable, and it is easy to consume the content in general.
Apart from the user experience boost, mobile-friendly websites rank higher in search results. Back in 2015, Google’s development team released a mobile-first indexing feature. This way, Google started the era of mobile-friendly websites to engage more users worldwide.
8. Blockchain technology
Put it simply, Blockchain provides a two-sided transaction event. It means that each transaction is verified by a decentralized distributed network. This way, you will definitely know what data is verified and clear.
Blockchain is one of the rapidly emerging technologies in web development, and it offers the following benefits:
- Decreases the financial business expense;
- Lessens the quantity of transaction contract;
- Enhances the cash flow provided by transparent records/data.
In terms of web development, Blockchain is one of the new web development technologies that provides such advantages as:
- Smart prediction system;
- High web pages interactivity;
- Data security;
- Safe transactions.
Do you want to know how to implement Blockchain technology in your web app?
For one of our projects, which was an insurance web app, Codica team needed to implement ultra-secure data storage and payment processing.
For that reason, we integrated Blockchain technology.
Thus, the delivered solution assures that all the customer financial data is reliably protected.
9. Internet of Things (IoT)
The Internet has changed education, management, healthcare, and even the way we interact with our friends. According to Internet World Stats, 89.9% of the population uses the Internet 81 daily in North America. Considering the business aspect, most companies made their operations digital.
The increased impact of the Internet on our lives made it possible to start an industry called the Internet of Things (IoT). What does it mean? Actually, it means connecting home devices, appliances, or wearable technology to the Internet. IoT makes lots of your devices accessible via your phone.
Why has IoT proved itself as one of the most powerful web development trends? The matter is that IoT-connected devices create constant data transferring. It allows companies to offer their services to engage with users as fast as possible, creating a personalized experience.
One of the most famous IoT device examples is Google Nest smart speakers. It is a smart IoT device that allows users to enjoy features like media, alarms, lights, and other functionality just with their voice.
Does it make any sense for the web development domain? For sure, IoT will create advanced communication between website layouts and operational models. The trend has a broad intensity of things like sensors, cameras, and signaling equipment. It will ensure to solve client requests more effectively and offer the most relevant responses.
If you want to make sure that IoT is one of the most rapidly emerging technologies in web development, take a look at the chart by Statista. It shows that IoT-connected devices will reach nearly 38.6 billion by 2025.
IoT is one of the most powerful tech trends that will shape the future of web development that offers the following benefits:
- Scalability. It assures data distribution and collection but doesn’t depend on the volume of data.
- Reliability. Considering data collection and delivery, IoT provides accurate results without delays and errors.
- Support and security. IoT provides powerful security technologies that help protect both business and user data.
Final words
In 2021, the current trends in web development transform the way businesses can interact with their clients. In our article, we have discussed emerging technologies in web development that boost user engagement. Adopting the latest technologies, websites can stay competitive and offer a great user experience.
We have listed the top 9 new web development technologies in 2021. Are you looking for a reliable custom software development partner to help you implement them? Our Codica team will be glad to transform your ideas into reality and boost your business. Contact us to discuss your project, and our experts will help bring it to life.