Best Practices for Web Application Development

What are the strongest trends of the last years and the best practices that we should follow to create exceptional web apps?

Read the article to find out:

• What are the most modern web development approaches?

• What are the best practices in web app development?

• What are the best steps of the web application development process?

• Recommended approaches and technologies for applying the best web development practices?

What Is The Difference Between Website And Web App Development?

The terms "web application" and "website" are often used interchangeably, but there are distinct differences between how they're built and what they're designed to achieve.

Web applications (web apps) are interactive, web-based software programs accessed through a browser, just like traditional websites. However, web apps go beyond simply displaying information.

They allow users to perform specific tasks, like managing projects, editing photos, or using social media. Think of them as mobile app-like experiences accessible from any device with a web browser.

Websites, on the other hand, are primarily focused on delivering information. They serve as digital brochures or online storefronts, showcasing a company's products, services, or portfolio.

While some websites, like e-commerce platforms, incorporate interactive elements, their core function is to provide content, not facilitate complex user actions.

Here's a simple analogy: Imagine a company website as a static brochure, and a web application as an interactive dashboard.

Examples:

• Web App: Facebook, Gmail, Google Docs

• Website: Company website with product descriptions, blog with articles, online portfolio

By understanding these differences, you can make an informed decision about which approach best suits your project's goals.

Website Applications Development - Best Practices For Project's Success

So you've decided to create a web application (web app) – fantastic! But with so many options and considerations, how do you ensure your app stands out?

If you decide to launch your own app, we highly recommend following these steps!

1. Planning and Goal Setting

Before diving into code, take a step back.  Clearly define your project's goals and outline the bigger picture. This initial planning stage helps avoid wasted effort and ensures your web app aligns with your overall objectives.

While it might seem time-consuming initially, thorough planning offers significant benefits in the long run:

• Streamlined Process: A well-defined plan ensures a clear direction for development, avoiding wasted effort and rework.

• Minimized Errors: Planning helps identify potential challenges and areas for errors upfront, allowing you to address them proactively.

• Maintained Focus: A development plan keeps the team focused on the overall goals and prevents them from getting sidetracked.

2. Choosing the Right Tech Stack

The foundation of any great web app is the technology behind it. From programming languages and frameworks to servers and libraries, the choices can seem overwhelming. 

We'll explore proven web development best practices and recommended tech stacks in a later section.

3. Create An Attractive App Design

First impressions matter, and your web app's design is no exception. An attractive, intuitive interface is crucial for attracting and retaining users. This means clear navigation, easily accessible features, and a visually appealing aesthetic that resonates with your target audience.

Consider factors like color schemes, fonts, and overall vibe to create a design that both looks good and feels comfortable for your users.

4. Prioritize Stellar User Experience (UX)

A beautiful design might grab attention, but it's the user experience (UX) that keeps users engaged and coming back for more. By prioritizing UX, you're essentially investing in long-term user satisfaction and growth.

Here are some key UX best practices:

• Constant Testing and Improvement: Continuously gather user feedback and use it to refine your app's UX.

• Focus on User Needs: Design your app around how users will interact with it, addressing their needs and pain points.

5. Ensure Speed and Performance

Slow loading times can be detrimental. According to Google, bounce rates (users leaving a website) can skyrocket by 32% with a page load time increase from one to three seconds.

Here are some tips on how you can optimize performance:

• Tech Stack Optimization: Choose a tech stack known for its performance and scalability.

• Content Optimization: Reduce image sizes and streamline code for faster loading.

• Regular Testing and Optimization: Continuously monitor and improve your app's performance.

6. Build for Scalability

Scalability is one of the most important aspects of the app life cycle. Once your audience starts to grow, you need to make sure that your app is capable of handling increasing traffic. 

Choose a tech stack that can handle increasing traffic and allow for future updates and optimizations.

7. Make Your Web App Responsive

A responsive design is a must nowadays. This ensures a seamless user experience across different devices (desktops, tablets, smartphones) and operating systems.

8. Use a Robust CMS Solution

As a web application requires regular updates, you need a tool that will support you in content management. A powerful CMS is the backbone of this process, providing the tools necessary for swift content edits and modifications.

A modern CMS simplifies the maintenance of your web app, allowing for effortless management and ensuring that your content stays current and compelling.

By leveraging a dynamic CMS, you can maintain the freshness of your web app, which is vital for retaining user interest and encouraging repeat visits.

Frameworks provide a pre-built foundation with code structures and functionalities, allowing developers to focus on the unique aspects of your web app.

This can:

• Reduce Errors: Frameworks offer established coding patterns, minimizing the chance of errors during development.

• Save Time: By leveraging pre-written code components, frameworks can significantly accelerate the development process.

• Simplify Development for Beginners: CMS frameworks offer a structured approach, making web development more accessible for new developers.

9. Security As A Top Priority

As the next hacker attack happens every 39 seconds, security is an inherent part of software development and priority.

Integrate security best practices throughout the development process to protect your app and user data. This includes data encryption, input validation, access control, and role management.

10. Keep Your Code Clean and Maintainable

Well-written, concise code is a cornerstone of every web developer's best practices. It not only simplifies initial development but also fosters easier maintenance and reduces technical debt in the long run. 

Strive for consistent coding practices that are understandable not just by the web developers working on the project but also by those who might join the team later.

Here are some tips for clean coding:

• Focus on Functionality: Each line of code should contribute a specific feature or functionality to your web app.

• Embrace Code Comments: Include comments within your code to explain its purpose and functionality. This improves code readability and maintainability, especially for future modifications or collaboration.

11. Embrace Modern Features and Optimization

Stay ahead of the curve by incorporating trendy web development features like creative data visualization and animations. These elements can enhance user experience, storytelling, and website navigation.

Additionally, consider integrating cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), or Augmented Reality (AR).

12. Continuous Testing Throughout Development

Unexpected bugs and glitches can derail even the most well-planned project. Integrate rigorous testing throughout the development process to identify and fix issues before launch.

 This ensures a smooth user experience and a polished final product.

 13. Embrace Incremental Development

Web app development is an iterative process. Instead of aiming for massive feature rollouts, prioritize regular and incremental updates. This approach offers several advantages:

• Reduced Bugs: Smaller, more frequent updates allow for easier bug identification and correction.

• Flexibility for Future UI Changes: By building a modular backend that can adapt to UI modifications, you can easily update the web app's appearance without a complete overhaul.

14. Cross-Platform and Browser Compatibility

Users access web apps from a variety of devices and browsers. Make sure your web app functions and displays correctly across different platforms to guarantee a seamless user experience for everyone.

Utilize cross-platform and cross-browser testing to identify any compatibility issues.

15. Adhere to Industry Standards

Established web development standards exist for a reason – they create a familiar and user-friendly experience for visitors.

Here are some key standards to consider:

• Consistent Navigation: Maintain a consistent navigation structure across all pages of your web app. This fosters a sense of familiarity and eases user navigation.

• Strategic Element Placement: There are recommended placements for elements on your web app's homepage, such as the logo in the top-left corner and contact information at the top-right.

• Appropriate Hyperlink Sizes: Ensure hyperlinks are easily visible and clickable to avoid frustrating user experiences.

16. Optimize SEO

In order to build a solid source of new customers, make sure that your web application is always optimized in terms of the constantly changing algorithms of modern search engines.

Following SEO guidelines and implementing best practices is a chance to increase traffic that you simply cannot miss. Here's how web dev tactics affect SEO positively:

• Reducing page load time

• Ensuring responsiveness

• Creating the proper content

Providing the right website architecture

Best Steps To Take in The Web Application Development Process

However, best practices are still not enough. To develop an exceptional web application, you need to follow all of the important stages, including careful planning, prototyping, and the right maintenance. So, what are the basic steps of a successful web application development process?

Let’s start with defining three types of web applications that differ in functionality and development purpose:

1. Defining a problem

A successful software development process cannot exist without a careful and complex analysis. The first step on our list is mostly about finding answers to questions such as:

• What do we build the app for?

• What kind of problems do we aim to solve?

• What does the target audience expect?

• How can the product properly target their needs?

• What features should I provide to keep end-users satisfied?

Defining the goals above requires detailed and comprehensive research that will reveal real, not only assumed, customer needs. As you can see, the idea of a web app is not enough – to make sure that the development process will be successful in technical and business terms, it must first and foremost consider the customers’ perspective.

At this stage, you can consider a web development consultancy service that will clear things up for you.

2. Developing a plan

Once you have answers to the most critical questions, it’s time to develop a plan to keep the process smooth and manageable within the required deadline. At this stage, your development team should define the project scope, as well as the expected functionalities, and prepare a project roadmap.

Developers should also select technologies that are most promising for the specific type of project.

Furthermore, the plan for website application development should consider both technical and business perspectives. This is why the development team should also estimate the budget and define the best way to achieve their goals with available resources.

A well-prepared plan with established communication rules and project management methods will help to keep the development process smooth and prevent bottlenecks.

3. Product designing

The next step in the web app development process is about conceptualizing and gathering initial ideas for the future product. At this stage, the development team aims to define the shape of the app. It’s related to both the functional and visual side, including UI and UX design.

Most importantly, such brainstorming should be based on analyzing the in-depth thoughts, desires, and expectations of the target group. After the ideas are collected and primarily verified, the team proceeds with choosing the most promising one for further development.

A well-conducted design stage will help to eliminate or reduce many risks and increase the chances of choosing the most optimal idea.

As a result of this step, the team should have a defined list of tasks and split responsibilities to proceed with the next stage of website application development.

4. Prototyping

The next important step on the way to developing a web app is comprehensive testing of the chosen idea. This usually means building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

This allows getting a better understanding of the product’s look and functionalities, as well as starting the process of gathering feedback from early adopters.

A well-prepared MVP will help you to validate whether your idea meets the customers’ expectations and whether its development should be continued. This is basically how development teams mitigate the risk of deploying an unsuccessful product.

Presenting the beta version to the target audience also helps to finetune the product’s final functionalities and make sure that further development will head in the right direction.

5. Web App Development

Now we finally proceed to the major step of the web app development process – coding the final solution. Once your idea is validated, and the desired functionalities of your app are defined, you can start with building a final solution.

Based on the feedback collected from early adopters, your team can focus on the development of the most required features.

At this stage, front-end and back-end frameworks and technologies should be already defined. For instance, at Naturaily, we are fans of Jamstack development which is one of the most efficient ways to create a fully functional web application. 

At the end of the development stage, the app must be hosted on a web server under a proper domain to be finally launched and presented to a wider audience.

6. Testing

Once your app is ready to go, it’s time to test it! Before you let your customers use it, you need to make sure that it’s efficient and bug-free. It’s also crucial to observe how the app reacts to traffic and whether it’s capable of handling the expected intensity of requests. Remember that quality assurance and testing significantly impact the overall app rating and user satisfaction.

Skipping testing may cause severe malfunctioning in the future. This is why we recommend carrying it out not only at the end but regularly during the entire development process.

The sooner the error will be detected, the cheaper and less tough it will be to remove it. Once the final testing stage is completed, the application is ready for launch.

7. Launch

Ready to celebrate? Not so fast. Even though launching an app is a big win, it also begins a busy period of gathering user feedback. In this phase of best practices web development, it's crucial to stay alert and look for ways to make your app even better.

Paying close attention to your users and tracking their feedback is key. For instance, testing the user experience of a finished app can provide useful tips for improving your app and making it more appealing.

This is an integral part of maintaining the best web development practices and fostering the application development best practices.

8. Maintenance and development

Web app development does not end once the app is launched – the post-development process is equally important. Monitoring its performance and making sure there are no malfunctions is simply a must if you wish to keep your app successful in the long term.

Functional, safe, and bug-free web applications will keep attracting more and more users and lead to financial success.

You should never stop optimizing performance, reacting to consumers’ feedback and requests, renewing licenses, and extending functionality by developing newly desired features.

Web App Development - Recommended Approaches and Technologies

Choosing the right approach and technologies is crucial for building a successful web application. Here's a look at some of the most recommended options!

Jamstack

This modern approach focuses on building static websites with dynamic elements. It achieves this by decoupling the front-end layer from the back-end logic.

This separation allows developers to choose the best tools for each layer and frees them from vendor lock-in. Jamstack is ideal for websites that prioritize speed, security, and scalability.

The other interesting numbers and trends about Jamstack development are:

• Growing Popularity: A significant portion (24%) of Jamstack developers have less than 3 years of experience, indicating a growing influx of developers attracted to this technology.

• Global Reach: Over 50% of Jamstack developers come from outside Europe and North America, showcasing its expanding global adoption.

Composable Architecture

Composable architecture is a modern approach to web development that emphasizes building applications using independent, reusable modules. Each component is self-contained and performs a specific function. You can easily combine these components to create complex structures and features.

Composable architecture treats functionalities within a web application as independent modules. These modules have well-defined purposes and functionalities, with clear boundaries separating them from other parts of the application.

Examples of Composable Architecture in Action

• E-commerce applications: In composable commerce, separate modules can handle product listings, shopping cart management, user authentication, and payment processing. Each module can be independently developed, tested, and updated.

• Content Management Systems (CMS): Composable CMS platforms offer various modules for content creation, editing, publishing, and delivery. After the successful composable commerce migration, users can select and assemble the modules they need to create a customized content management experience.

Headless Architecture

Headless architecture separates the front-end presentation layer (what users see) from the back-end data layer.

This separation offers several advantages:

• Enhanced Design & UX: With the front-end decoupled, designers and developers have more freedom to create user-centric interfaces without constraints from the back-end.

• Improved Performance: Headless architecture often leads to faster loading times as unnecessary back-end data fetching is minimized.

• Greater Scalability: The decoupled nature allows the back-end to scale independently of the front-end, making it easier to handle increased traffic demands.

• Content Management Flexibility: Headless CMS enable seamless content updates and delivery across platforms.

React.js

This open-source JavaScript library is a popular choice for building web applications.

React is known for:

• SEO-friendliness and Performance: React applications tend to rank well in search engines and deliver fast user experiences.

• Ease of Learning: Compared to other libraries, React offers a relatively gentle learning curve for developers.

• Reusable Components and Developer Efficiency: React promotes code reusability through components, leading to faster development and cleaner codebases.

• Excellent UI/UX: React allows developers to build visually appealing and user-friendly interfaces.

Next.js

Built on top of React, Next.js is a framework that simplifies web application development.

It offers features like:

• Streamlined Development Process: Next.js provides tools and functionalities that save developers time and effort throughout the development lifecycle.

• Performance Optimization: Next.js prioritizes performance with features like automatic code splitting and server-side rendering.

• Data Management Flexibility: Next.js offers various options for fetching data from APIs, providing developers with control over data management strategies.

• Internationalization Support: Next.js includes built-in tools for creating multilingual web applications.

Node.js

This JavaScript runtime environment is particularly well-suited for back-end development. Node.js offers several benefits:

• Speed and Performance: Node.js is known for its ability to handle real-time data streaming and asynchronous tasks efficiently.

• Cross-Platform Compatibility: Node.js applications can run on various operating systems without modification.

• Scalability: Node.js applications can be easily scaled to accommodate increased traffic demands.

• Large and Active Community: A vast developer community provides extensive support and resources for Node.js development.

PWA (Progressive Web Apps)

PWAs are web applications that offer app-like experiences without requiring installation from an app store. They provide several advantages:

• Fast Load Times: PWAs leverage caching mechanisms to deliver exceptionally fast loading times, even on slow internet connections.

• Offline Functionality: PWAs can function even when users are offline, thanks to their ability to store essential data locally.

• Broader Reach: PWAs work across various devices and browsers, eliminating the need for separate native app development for each platform.

• Improved User Engagement: PWAs can leverage push notifications and other features to enhance user engagement.

The Summary

The landscape of web development has evolved significantly, offering a wider range of tools and approaches to create powerful and engaging web applications. By following best practices, choosing the right technologies, and focusing on user experience, you can build a web app that stands out from the crowd.

This article provided a comprehensive overview of key considerations for web application development.

Here's a quick recap:

• Modern Approaches: Explore innovative approaches like Jamstack, composable architecture, and headless architecture to unlock benefits like speed, scalability, and flexibility.

• Proven Technologies: Utilize established technologies like React.js, Next.js, Node.js, and PWAs to build robust and performant web applications.

• Best Practices Integration: Implement best practices throughout the development lifecycle, from planning and design to testing, launch, and maintenance.

Remember, a successful web application goes beyond functionality. Prioritize user experience, maintainability, and continuous improvement to ensure your web app delivers long-term value for your users and your business.

As headless & composable specialists delivering web app development services, Naturaily obviously applies the most modern approaches. To all clients who wish to build static websites or web applications equipped with dynamic elements, we highly recommend our beloved headless development.

This approach has helped many of our clients achieve extraordinary functionality and great performance.

And if you’re searching for a highly qualified e-commerce and web development company, you’re in the right place. In our website application development process, we use the most efficient programming languages and web application development frameworks.

With our portfolio, experience, and resources, we are ready to complete even the most complicated projects while keeping the development process smooth and agile. If a future-proof web application developed in line with the latest trends is currently on your mind, feel free to contact us!