“Getting a quality website is not an expense but rather an investment.” Dr. Christopher Dayagdag’s words focus on one single aspect—quality. You’ll have to rewind and compare the web development trends from yesteryears and today to get a better understanding of the same. And how far it has traveled to date.

Technology, as you know, keeps getting better. What was hip before is now archaic? There are demands placed by new businesses and enterprises that push the boundaries of web development every day.

Web development trends

In the context of web development trends, 2017 was great. It gave the world truly beautiful and efficient websites. But new trends in web development need to keep coming to fulfill demands, and they will. It’s the only way to stay ahead of the competitive business curve.

This post focuses on the latest website trends in 2018. You have to adopt it if you’re on the lookout for a brand new website. You also need to follow its ways to give your existing website a new avatar.

But before you get into the top 8 latest trends in web development for the year 2018, you should know why keeping up the latest web trends is beneficial for you.

Statistical Report on Web development

• According to a report, at least 77% of digital agencies cite UX in web development as one of the weaknesses that lead to poor performance in the industry
• 38% of online customers bail out of a website if it’s overall design and content is below par
• As reported by HubSpot, 47% of the online audience visit the services/products page of the company before redirecting to any other sections on the website

The figures clearly indicate the need for responsive, elegant, and efficient websites in order to keep customers hooked. Here’s the list of new trends in web development that’ll help you do just that.

New trends in Web Development

• Real-Time Web Applications

From a customer’s perspective, information from the server side should be seamless and automatic. Websites should ideally mimic the flow of information as seen on news channels. For instance, consider that you’re watching news being telecast on a channel and something major occurs—you’re automatically notified about it and everything else without disrupting your focus. 

Real-time web applications have been doing the rounds for years now, but it’s more popular than ever. Clients were requesting Website development services all around the world to introduce this feature. So that users can get instant updates and share them without a moment’s delay.

This trend based on WebSockets works on an open-ended server-client connection. The server pushes fresh content as soon as it’s available. This, however, wasn’t the case back in the days where the client would have to request the server manually for updated data.

Such is the demand for this feature that many other programming languages and frameworks are adopting it. The best example would be Ruby On Rails, which previously made use of server rendering. Having seen the flexibility and improvement real-time feature brings to the table, even they’ve integrated it and tagged it as ‘ActionCable’.

• Motion User Interface

One of the best website design trends that stood out in 2017 and continues is Motion UI. Web developers also popularised it. Simplicity is key in the domain of User Interface. A cluttered, overly-flashy webpage with tons of advertisements and popups will not appeal to a user. The point is not to bring the number of GIFs and animations to a minimum or a maximum, but to keep it moderate.

Top web developers leverage Motion UI to give plain and old-fashioned content a creative look with animations. And they do it without being though in JQuery libraries or Javascript. Through Motion UI your website is dynamic in comparison to other static websites. A lot of additional elements come into play. For instance, animated backgrounds and charts, smooth hovers and page header transitions, and modular scrolling.

In nutshell, with web design trends such as Motion UI is not just presenting content, but making it come alive. This also provides users an ability to play around with it and make the whole information-exchange process interactive.

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• AI-Enhanced Chatbots, the latest trend in web development

Do you know the website development trend in the year 2020? Manual intervention/interaction with a user on a website will be only 15%?

Yes, 85% of users on a website will proceed without any human assistance. The introduction of chatbots, however, is nothing new. Website trends in 2016 first introduced chatbots in the picture. Although it was just the first step, 2017 saw an increment in the amount of help provided to users.

In 2018, website developers aim to heighten the quality of the same services. Come to think of it, chatbots are in high demand and almost mandatory on most websites. This is because you just don’t know what doubts a user may have.

If there is a support team available but cannot engage a customer, a chatbot can start a dialogue and try to figure out the solutions based on frequently asked questions. This way a user experiences human-like interactions and gets their problems resolved by clicking on the links provided for issues related to payments, and browsing, etc.

It’s no secret that as the year progresses more users will require online support while visiting a website. With a chatbot in place, you also stand to save money, human resource and optimize the entire workflow.

• Blockchain Technology

The Blockchain is one of the latest web development technologies which is in high demand. However, it is least understood, and massively undervalued. You must’ve come across the term in the past—or maybe recently as a result of the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies—but still consider it as a grey area in the digital domain. Well, you can define the Blockchain as a string of devices that record transactions and assets that change hands.

This process inspires transparency, accountability, and security all across networks. Transactions and managing products/services will be the crux of your website. Authenticity and security will obviously come into the picture with blockchain. It will especially be in the case of eCommerce website development. 

Nowadays, the financial, retail, health, telecom, IT, and education sectors implement blockchain to add an extra layer of security in order to thwart fraud and tampering. With such growing demand, blockchain is undoubtedly the best web trend you should consider for your venture.

Read Also:- Stages for developing an effective website!

• Single-Page Websites- New trend in web development

A standout amongst new website trends for 2018 is the single-page for simplicity. What you get is a single-scrollable page with all of the content on it without any clutter.

The benefit of this feature is that you do not confuse the user with tons of content, irrelevant information, and disorienting navigation from the menu. You have one page with all the data the user wants to see. In a way, you’re in control of the user’s behavior on the website as you let him/her stay on a single page. Also, such websites are mobile-friendly and the costs of design, development, and hosting are cheaper.

Single pagers are good but you should consider the nature of your website while doing so. For instance, blogs and e-commerce websites will not sit well with this approach. On the other hand, businesses and organizations can present their services or products in a much more engaging manner with single pages.

• Flash To HTML Migration

How many times have you been prompted by a popup or notification to enable Flash? Undoubtedly a number of times, and maybe even now whenever you visit a website with ads, videos, and animations. Now, understand this: Youtube defected to HTML5 from Flash.

What does that tell you? Take a hint!

If you haven’t figured it out already, the reason why Youtube and most websites prefer HTML5 over Flash is that that it’s compatible with mobile devices. The technology on Flash is outdated which results in a loss of traffic, and the number is huge. Flash also runs very slowly on Mac OS and Linux because it doesn’t have access to the GPUs. As a result, it burdens the CPU which makes it run slowly. Flash also has compatibility issues on certain devices. In comparison, HTML5 runs 58% faster and runs flawlessly on all devices and platforms without causing any heat-related issues, unlike Flash.

Games and videos nowadays are presented in HTML5 format. The popularity around it is so high that almost all of the digital content accept HTML as the universal format. HTML might not necessarily be amongst the group of new website trends, but it is one that you should not overlook especially if your website still runs Flash. It is advisable to go with web development trends. 

Hire HTML5 Developers

• Websites With Push Notifications, a new trend

Push notifications for mobiles is still a huge deal but websites have started to implement it seeing the value. Considered as one of the latest web technologies, all you have to do is click on the ‘Enable Push Notifications’ button on the prompt when you first visit a website. The benefit of doing this is that you’ll be prompted with any changes that take place on the website even when you’ve logged out or closed the browser. There are, however, a few more plus points.

Plus Points of Push notifications

• Keep users engaged without investing a lot of effort in notifying them
• Quicker and up-to-date than SMS, emails, and social media
• The entire process is simple and the user gets timely alerts
• Completely user-friendly and in some cases a cheaper alternative to mobile applications
• Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari have a combined market reach of 65-70%. With push notifications enabled, the engagement potential is huge
• Push notifications can engage users who are not even on the website.
• There isn’t any need for private information such as email ID or shared phone number in order to enable push notifications thereby resulting in higher opt-in rates
• According to reports, push notifications have a conversion rate 30 times than that of email
• The opt-out (disable push notification) rate is less than 10% of the subscribers
• Since this feature is still in the works the audience is predominantly comprised of tech-savvy individuals

Read Also:- Fresh and Creative Web Design Techniques!

• Progressive Web Applications

 

Webtrends included under this subheading can be considered as an extension of the one above. So, what is the meaning of progressive web applications? It was 2015 when progressive web applications were first introduced. Three years hence, these applications have become the sole entity that can challenge mobile applications. Also known as PWAs, there are websites that give you the feel, look, and functionality of a mobile application. The best part about them is that they can even work offline as a result of service workers.

The workflow of PWAs is quite interesting. The service workers are scripts that run in the background and cache information. So, when a user saves the shortcut of the PWA on the home screen, the service workers download relevant data and store it in the cache memory. The same service workers also ensure that updated information is cached every time the PWA is connected to the internet.

The prospects of PWAs look promising in 2018 as big industry players have certainly benefited from it. For example, it’s understood that Flipkart and Washington Post have witnessed a remarkable increase in user engagement, conversions, and time spent on the websites.

Web development trends in 2018

2018 has only just begun. And the abovementioned shortlist of 8 trends is but a small piece of the cake which is sure to see a few more additions every now and then.

Other noteworthy web development trends that did not make this list include Angular 2 and Laravel 5.x for modern web development, the resurgence of static website development, integrations with social media platforms (social selling), video backgrounds, single e-commerce network, augmented reality, and the like.

As an innovator, you must carefully understand the demands of your customers and choose from the list of features that offers the best user experience. Always opt for a website development company that meets your requirements, offers timely support and fixes, and completes the project on time and within your budget.