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Latest Trends in Web Development for 2021

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Technology is evolving at a rapid pace, and businesses are challenged to keep up with this pace or risk losing customers. In the digital marketplace, a website determines the user experience of the target audience. Consumers seek innovative, user-friendly and interactive websites, laden with modern tools, like AI-powered chatbots, innovative layouts and efficient customer service.

This heightens the pressure on web developers to stay abreast with ongoing trends and innovations, and help businesses embrace these trends with ease. The digital environment is buzzing with over 1.7 billion websites from all over the globe. Businesses strive to maintain quality websites to boost sales and maintain customer loyalty.

Developers identify innovative trends, widgets and website layouts to help businesses embrace exponential growth with user-friendly and immersive websites. To people who don’t understand website development, coding may seem overwhelmingly complication. Only a website developer can understand the inner dynamics of creating a platform that gives a business a powerful digital representation.

In 2021, website development is dominated by big data analytics, AI-powered tools, and other dynamic tricks to boost lead generation and conversions. Keep reading to explore the biggest trends in web development this year.

Voice Recognition Technology

Voice search has emerged as a powerful innovation that aims to enhance user convenience and allow hands free digital experiences. With the rise of Google home and voice assistants, users now seek the same efficient experience in websites. In 2021, voice search is an arena that is expected to enjoy immense innovation, with the addition of billions of voice assistants in websites worldwide.

Industry observers believe that voice search functions will have a dynamic impact on how developers choose to design and configure websites. Voice search is set to emerge as a powerful trend in the ecommerce sector. Amazon, Google and Microsoft, amongst other tech giants, are rapidly embracing the voice search technology to usher innovation.

Danny Bluestone, CEO of Cyber-Duck says “Smart assistants and speakers have become an everyday tool in the lives of billions of consumers, and developers are compelled to ensure that websites are fully optimized with the voice search functionality. In a few months, websites that are not powered with voice search will find themselves at a serious disadvantage of losing customers and decreasing sales”

Cloud Computing Services

Adam Jansen, Security Expert of Cheap SSL Security says “Cloud services are another arena poised to emerge as a billion-dollar industry in 2021. This year, developers are focused on embracing cloud computing advancements to overcome data overloading and loss”

Adam further added “This innovation has the potential to transform regular services, and reduce the costs associated with website development, alongside revolutionizing and improving the overall web architecture. Cloud computing opens up a sea of lucrative opportunities for ecommerce brands and their marketing goals”

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, businesses worldwide are reliant on remote ecommerce and corporate solutions. Cloud computing has the potential to expand productivity, growth and revenues exponentially.

AI-Powered Chatbots

AI-powered chatbots and communication tools began taking over digital customer service back in 2020, and this year, these are becoming somewhat of a necessity. Customers have queries and complaints, and they don’t want to wait a single second for a response. AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants offer an impressive and comprehensive customer service experience”

Within seconds, AI chatbots can skim through large volumes of data to understand customer history, purchases and preferences. Experts believe that these AI communication tools are better at helping customers as they eliminate the possibility of human error and offer fast responses. In fact, AI-powered chatbots aid businesses in reducing customer drop-off rates, assisting with purchases and preventing delays.

Holly Zorbas, Assistant Editor at CreditDonkey says, “Being into an Insurance company, we receive numerous queries about our services and other additional information. I firmly believe that integrating Chatbots on your website helps in clearing customers' doubts and also helps in receiving instant valuable feedback from customers to win their loyalty. Bots rely on natural language programming to engage in intelligible and helpful conversations with humans. They are trained to work through vast volumes of data to deliver more efficient solutions. Chatbots combine cognitive intelligence with speech recognition technology to offer greater efficiency and reliability.

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Jake Smith, Managing Director of Absolute Reg says “The development of progressive web applications (PWAs) is the hottest trend in the digital arena. Given the popularity of smartphone applications, industry observes have sought to imitate their foundational model to offer a more interactive web experience. Experts believe that PWAs are capable of boosting higher conversion rates as compared to mobile applications”

The basic premise behind PWA development is to offer a smartphone-like experience across all kinds of devices. A progressive web application is much more interactive and immersive, and it transforms the user-experience with responsive, app-like functions. The fun part is, users don’t have to download them.

Chris Taylor, Marketing Director at Profit Guru says “Twitter, Forbes and Amazon are some of the leading innovators to combine the power of progressive web applications with a native mobile app design. PWAs have proven really effective at revolutionizing customer experience, boosting conversions and reducing bounce rates. What makes them so special is the fact that they allow a seamless user experience with fast-loading page speed, and offline functionality”

In 2021, PWAs are expected to grow exponentially as they offer consumers greater reliability and accessibility.

Night-themed UI

Users are increasingly becoming aware of the eye strain caused by bright white light emanating from digital devices and smartphones. In fact, most newer smartphone brands and models offer extensive brightness and lighting configurations. The night or dark-theme user interface is a popular feature in most smartphones as it reduces the eyestrain.

Dusan Stanar, Founder & CEO of VSS Monitoring “Many popular websites and applications, including Facebook, Android, Twitter and WhatsApp, are also embracing this trend. The night-theme user interface enhances visibility and reduces the energy consumption of the device by increasing the quantity of the black pixels. Aside from giving the website a sleek and classic outlook, a dark-themed UI is also considerate of the user’s eye health and visibility”

Conclusion

As the world continues to grapple with an unprecedented healthcare crisis, the remote working and buying model has emerged as the new norm. Web development trends, like dark-themed UI, blockchain solutions, AI-powered chatbots and voice search functionality are aimed at enhancing the user experience.

These advancements are reflective of the fact that users are going to spend more time online and in digital environments; whether they are working on shopping. This requires developers to offer a seamless, interactive and immersive website experience by embracing these trends.

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