What are the emerging trends in web development?

Can you imagine how fast the world of web development is evolving? It just seems like yesterday when we were surprised to see the parallax scrolling — and today, here we are, taking a leap through the world of 3D. 

Nowadays, it’s all about offering a seamless, immersive, and almost tangible experience to users. Yes, the kind that makes people go “Wow, how did they do that?” as they navigate through a website.

As seasoned web developers, it’s crucial for you to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to these upcoming changes — after all, today’s trends might not be useful tomorrow. 

Today, we will tell you all about the emerging trends in web development that you will be seeing in the year 2024.

AI Chatbots

We all know AI chatbots aren’t new to the industry, but in 2024, they are getting a revamp to meet our needs better. In order to get there, the bots will start to match user behavior with NLP, information retrieval techniques and machine learning. 

Thanks to these technologies — but chatbots will now have the capability to understand more complex human queries accurately.

The impact of conversational AI in customer service is going to be huge. As AI can now understand complex queries, it can answer customers 24/7, allowing businesses to bring down their overhead costs and improve customer experience. Apart from that, it can also collect useful customer insights which can contribute to the sales and marketing team efforts. 

Besides conversational AI, AI chatbots are also going to see a soar in the market because of its updated multilingual and multimodal understanding. These chatbots have become much more adept at understanding and responding in multiple languages.

Here are some more ways how the AI chatbots are going to benefit you:

• Personalized Experiences for Users: With improved machine learning capabilities, AI chatbots can now remember past conversations and tailor future responses accordingly for every user — thus ensuring a personalized website experience.
• Better Integrations with Voice Assistants: With better understanding capabilities, there are more chances of quality integrations with voice assistants. 
• Reduced Error Rates: Unlike humans, AI chatbots are not prone to errors and can learn much faster to increase their accuracy from every conversation.

Single-Page Applications

Even though it’s one of the recent trends in web developments, Single-Page Applications are JavaScript-based applications that load a single HTML page and update the content dynamically as required without refreshing it.

Platforms like Google, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) have already adapted it especially for a better user experience where users can see updated content of the page without having to load a whole page from the server. As SPAs only request the data they need, it can result in lesser server processing thus reducing the server load. 

Moreover, maintaining a centralized data source also becomes easier as SPAs majorly interact with the backend services through the APIs.

WordPress Development

WordPress has always been quite popular for its intuitive interface but in 2024, it’s focusing majorly on improving the user-experience through its navigational structure. In 2023, WordPress has not only been enhancing its navigational structure but has also embraced the trend of white label WordPress development. This approach allows businesses and agencies to customize and brand WordPress websites for their clients seamlessly.

With an eventual surge in the number of mobile users, the focus will be majorly on mobile optimization and responsiveness so that the sites look and work great even from mobile, leading to better user experience. 

WordPress is also focusing to ensure a better convergence of social media and content by offering more flexible integrations with social media analytics tools — allowing users to track their social media efforts from their website’s dashboard. 

Some more probable WordPress trends that might follow are:

• Better Block Editor: With the launch of WordPress 6.1, new APIs have been introduced for developers which means more improvements will be seen on the block editor to make it more user-friendly. 
• More Scalability: With the introduction of WordPress VIP, now, there are more scopes to scale up for larger enterprises.
• Video Backgrounds: With the introduction of video backgrounds using HTML5 video tags, websites can see better and more responsive user engagement. 

Optimized Voice Search

Even though it’s a decade old feature now introduced by Google, it’s popularity is only on the rise. Imagine writing a search query and the time it will consume — whereas, voice search can give you the answers in just a few seconds. 

Apart from personal usage, voice search will soon see a soar in business users as they try to optimize and reach a wider audience. Similarly, local SEO scopes will also get better as it will see a surge with queries like “gas stations near me” or “best pizza near me”.

Even on platforms like YouTube, voice search is taking over and social media marketers who use Hootsuite alternatives for these channels can benefit from the voice search analytics and voice command data to optimize their content and refine their strategies. 

Responsive Site Design

With nearly three-quarters of eCommerce sales coming from mobile devices only, there’s a major focus on responsive site designs in 2024. More ecommerce websites will shift towards the one-click shopping experience where mobile users can skip going through multiple in-app pages and make the purchase in just a click. 

Businesses can now better target their customers by leveraging the geolocation data where they can provide tailored content/services based on the user’s location. 

Besides, certain websites will soon leverage advanced security features by incorporating features like fingerprint or voice authentication for the added layer of security. What does this mean? You no longer need to remember complex passwords and can quickly login using your biometric data. 

When a website is in constant sync with the latest trends, it also improves its brand reputation — signaling the audience that the brand is up to date and cares about its users’ experience.

Improved Native Cybersecurity

In June 2021, hackers had stolen information from 700 million LinkedIn users to get access to their personal information like full names, email addresses, and more. Consequently, now, more focus will be laid on the increased security of the website development.

Websites that adapt and display robust cybersecurity measures foster trust among its visitors. A website that has a great security posture, can attract more visitors as they feel their information can be kept safe.

Besides that, businesses like eCommerce platforms and online services will be focusing more on improved continuous uptime and accessibility, as it can protect against DDoS attacks ensuring websites remain operational and accessible.

Even after all these, if threats come in, companies will have efficient measures like SOCs to cope with it. With SOCs, companies can monitor their networks real-time allowing quicker detection and mitigation of such threats.

As businesses grow, their web infrastructure often scales with them. Native cybersecurity implementations in the development phase ensure that security scales appropriately, maintaining protection levels regardless of growth.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

As mentioned previously, 58% international users use mobile devices for website searches and have very short attention spans — thus, slow-loading website pages can end up frustrating them. 

But with accelerated mobile pages, web pages can load almost instantaneously ensuring a smoother and more engaging user experience. As page-speed is already a criterion for Google’s SERP ranking algorithms, employing AMP earlier can fast-forward your ranking chances by increasing your visibility.

Businesses that rely directly on customer purchases can benefit more from it as faster page speeds can lead to better conversion chances by lowering the bounce rates. 

Moreover, AMP offers support for various analytics, ad networks, and other technologies, making it easier for businesses to gather data on user behavior and preferences. The best part? It can also reduce the server load by saving your overhead costs on hosting and server maintenance.

Motion UI

Motion UI acts like a magnet for users, drawing the audience’s attention to the key elements of the web page. These interactive animations not only drive user engagement but also encourage them to interact better with the content.

Such a feature can further help businesses better narrate a story and convey the brand’s personality, making sure that the brand remains memorable to its audience.

Since Motion UI is built for fully responsive designs, it ensures seamless user experiences across various devices, from mobile phones to large desktop screens.

Given its compatibility with all web technologies, developers have the flexibility to integrate Motion UI anywhere on a website, be it the header, footer, menus, or other sections.

For businesses, especially, such engaging animations can prove to be very useful and can guide the users to take actionable steps such as signing up for newsletters or making a purchase and more.  

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

PWAs or Progressive Web Apps are mobile-optimized and designed to load quickly especially for mobile users who have unstable or fluctuating network connections, ensuring a better user experience by loading pages immediately. 

The best part about Progressive Web Apps is that they can work smoothly even on poor networks or when it’s offline, for example, Google Maps. The caching mechanism enables users to access previously viewed content even when they don’t have an internet connection.

While the traditional applications require users to download its updates, PWAs can be updated on the server directly — thus, making sure that users always have access to the latest updates. 

Even though PWAs run on web browsers, they offer an app-like interface, like home screen icons, push notifications, and more. It also supports smooth animations and gesture responses to maintain a consistent look and feel across different platforms, encouraging users to spend more time.

Takeaway

From PWAs to immersive AR experiences, websites aren’t just a place of static information anymore — our digital world has changed faster than ever, and now, it’s all about experiences. And, as developers, your domain should always remain expanding — be it experimenting with new tools or adapting with the latest trends.

Remember,

• Being adaptable is your best asset because the digital world is ever-evolving. 
• Not every trend is for you — so assess the trend before jumping into it. 
• Don’t put user experience to the back seat just to match up with the trends — your audience should always be a priority.

Trends come and go, but the goal remains the same — ensuring a safe, user-friendly and engaging experience for everyone. While it’s crucial for us to keep a finger on the industry’s pulse, do not get swayed by every new wave.