Web development is growing at an accelerated rate. To find out the details of a business, customers will visit its website, mobile applications, and social media platforms that it owns. Therefore, it is important to answer them appropriately. That is why the best and easiest-to-use interfaces are in great demand.
When it comes to developing a web application there are a number of factors that define its success and each of them represents a challenge for any professional. Next we are going to analyze some of these elements to let you know, if you are just becoming interested in this topic, or if you are already well versed in it, to remind you that you should pay special attention to them, since, although it seems counterintuitive, important things also tend to be easily forgotten or overlooked when we are in the whirlpool of everyday life.
1. Interface and user experience
10 years ago, the web was a completely different place. Now web applications are simpler and user-oriented . If your web applications frustrate or confuse users, then it is difficult to maintain their loyalty. Also, in the age of smartphones, websites need to be responsive and friendly so that they are practical on the smallest screens.
Website navigation is another part neglected by developers. It is always necessary to offer the visitor the best user experience. Intuitive navigation leads your audience to the information they are looking for without a learning curve involved . Thus, visitors can discover the information without suffering in the process, creating a seamless experience that prevents them from visiting competitors.
2. Scalability
Scalability is not about performance, nor is it about making good use of resources and bandwidth. Scalability is about load balancing on the servers: when the load increases (that is, more traffic is received on the page), additional servers can be added to balance it.
You should not apply the entire traffic load to a single server, but should, if possible, design the software in such a way that it can work on a cluster of servers such as AWS (Amazon Web Services). Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can help improve scalability when more servers are required. SOA is a distributed application design in which application components provide services to other components through communication protocols, basically over a network.
3. Performance
It is generally accepted that web page speed is of great importance to a successful website. When your business is online, every second counts. Therefore, slow web applications should be considered a failure . Slowness causes customers to flee your website, and this affects your site’s reputation and hurts your revenue.
Some of the performance issues come from code, under-optimized databases, unmanaged data growth, traffic spikes, poor load distribution, problematic third-party services, and so on. The factors that affect speed can be numerous and sometimes require careful analysis to find the exact cause of the slowness. But it is very important to take the time to detect and fix them.
One way to solve some of these problems is to resort to a content distribution network (CDN) , which makes use of a network of proxy servers deployed in multiple data centers worldwide. This means that instead of using a single web server to use a library on your site, you use that component hosted on a network of servers. Among the benefits of using a CDN we have that the requests to the server will be sent to different servers to balance the traffic or that the files will be divided into different CDNs, so there will be no queuing and waiting for the individual download of things to finish. such as images, videos, code, etc. Page response time counts for a lot.
4. Knowledge of Frameworks and Platforms
Frameworks increase performance by offering standard libraries and expanding capabilities, so developers don’t need to make hand-coded web applications from scratch. In addition, they offer features such as templates, APIs, code snippets, and other elements for developing dynamic web applications.
There are frameworks that have a rigid approach to development and others that are more flexible. Some of the most common languages they use are PHP, ASP.Net, Ruby on Rails, and J2EE. Web platforms provide the libraries necessary to develop an application or website using any of the existing frameworks.
To choose a framework well, both developers and small business owners must have a clear understanding of their business and web and application development needs. The delivery of information and online presence usually require a simple web platform, such as those offered by the most popular content managers such as WordPress, Joomla, etc. But if you need a solution focused on sales, you will have to opt for an e-commerce platform such as Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce.
While we must choose the most appropriate platform for our needs, we must also take into account the technical knowledge involved, the learning curve, prices, and customization and analysis options. It is not about choosing a platform just because they say it is the best, but also doing it based on the economic cost and time and resources that it will entail.
5. Security
In the midst of design and user experience, web application security is often neglected. However, it must be taken into consideration throughout the entire software development life cycle, especially when the application deals with managing vital information such as credit card data, sensitive contact information or confidential data. from your company or from third parties.
There are many things to consider when it comes to web application security: denial of service attacks, user data security, database malfunction, unauthorized access to restricted areas of the web page, etc. .
Some of the security threats we may encounter are Cross-Site Scripting, Phishing, Cross-Site Request Forgery, Shell Injection, Session Hijacking, SQL Injection or Buffer Overflow . A website must be carefully coded to be protected against these problems.
Web development can be difficult, as it is about achieving a final product that must be pleasant, brand-building, and technically up-to-date, in conjunction with a secure web environment. It certainly poses significant challenges for any professional, but it is not about anything that cannot be tackled with proper training and a habit of continuous updating, always accompanied by an attitude favorable to innovation and creative problem solving.
