8 Web Development Trends every Developer should expect in 2020-21

1. Modular design and lower development costs

Modular design allows developers to reuse components and modules to create a web page rather than creating a web page using a restrictive template. Visually, modular design is a step up from templates. Developers can use it to create content blocks to display information is a powerful way.

However, creating a modular design web page is like building with a lego set. Each piece should interlock with one another without worrying how to rebuild the shape of the lego piece.

2. Responsive design and the rise of mobile users

Responsive design is becoming a must-have rather than a nice-to-have. In 2015, 35% of website traffic was served to mobile devices. Then, in 2016, that number was 43%. Now, in 2017, 50.3% of website traffic happened on a phone instead of a computer or tablet. That’s an increase in mobile traffic of 7% just from 2016 to 2017. With all of that, then, it isn’t surprising that Google is going to release its mobile-first indexing during or after 2019 arrives officially. What does that mean? Currently, Google looks at the desktop version of a site and then bases how it will rank the mobile site according to that information. Once this update rolls out, the opposite of that will happen. Google will begin looking at your mobile site and from that, will rank the desktop site.I n other words, mobile websites will officially become the end-all of your rankings.

3. Chatbots and customer support

57% of consumers appreciate chatbots for their instantaneity. Industry predictions show that over 85% of customer interactions will happen without a human on the business end by 2020. Similarly, chatbots will become the number one application for consumers across all AI integrations in the next five year. And already, the chatbot is finding its place among customer service professionals. Which isn’t a big surprise. Businesses can save a lot of money by employing bots instead of humans. Collectively, around $23 billion in the customer service sector. That in itself should get you excited about chatbots!

4. Accelerated mobile pages and load speed

With Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Google is trying to encourage and enable business leaders to develop websites that load instantaneously and work smoothly on mobile devices.

In Google’s own words, “We want web pages with rich content like video, animations, and graphics to work alongside smart ads and to load instantaneously. We also want the same code to work across multiple platforms and devices so that content can appear everywhere in an instant — no matter what type of phone, tablet or mobile device you're using.”

The benefits of AMPs are real.The median load time, for instance, for content coded with AMP HTML is 0.7 seconds. Conversely, the median load time for non-AMP pages is 22 seconds.

That’s a massive difference! If AMP pages can load your website in 0.7 seconds rather than five, ten, 15, or even 20 seconds, then switching might make sense.

5. Voice search optimisation

From 2008 to 2016, voice search queries multiplied by 35 times. And today, 19% of people use Siri at least once per day, and 55% of teens and 40% of adults use voice search on a daily basis. By 2020, 50% of search queries will be done with voice instead of text. Voice search is a trend breaking into search engines everywhere. And technology like Siri on iPhone, Cortana on Android, Google Assistant from Google, and Alexa and Echo from Amazon aren’t only increasing how commonplace voice search is, it’s making consumers more comfortable with the feature. 

Fortunately, you can easily add a voice search recognition API to your website. And two of the world’s largest web browsers — Google Chrome and Firefox — support the technology. Which means that users don’t have to voice search to find your website and then text search on your website itself.

6. API-first design and streamlined workloads

The more connected our world becomes the more APIs that each application ends up having. And with the rise of the IoT, our mobile devices, homes, cars, gaming systems, wearable tech, and laptops are all connected. That offers a lot of convenience for the user. But all of those connections can get a bit dicey if the developer starts building the application in the wrong place. Traditionally, developers start with the user and build from there. They design the application and add in the appropriate APIs after the fact.

If you want to get things done faster and without making front-end developers wait on back-end developers at every step of the way, a platform with headless content management capabilities - also known as an API-first solution - would be the way forward.

7. Motion UI and suffering attention spans

The internet is massive. But you know that. What you might not know, though, is how that affects the average person’s attention span; some sources claim that the human attention span is worse than that of a goldfish. 

And what better way to grab the attention of a user than with a captivating motion UI?

Since attention spans are suffering, you’ll likely see more motion UI efforts on the part of developers to grab visitor attention and keep them engaged. Of course, we have yet to see how effective this strategy actually is.

8. Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity

In 2020, the robots will likely make a big difference in the cybersecurity world. As developers learn how to build artificial intelligence (AI) that can help with everything from customer support to predictive trends and image recognition, AI will become the future of cybersecurity. 

Why are robots so helpful in the cybersecurity world, though?

For several reasons. Often, cybersecurity professionals can’t work to diffuse an attack until the damage has already been done. After all, even cybersecurity professionals have to sleep, eat, and go to the bathroom. The point is, these people aren’t always available. Robots, however, are. And once they are created, you don’t have to pay them systemic wages or offer lunch breaks. They can attack a problem the moment it occurs and will have a better chance of mitigating the damage done because of that.