What Are Progressive Web Applications? Why Are They In Trend?

There are two types of services available in this world. One, which is available as well as developed to meet the requirements of the public. The other, which is available but not for everyone, hence we call it a private or limited service.

As far as software development is concerned, there are such enterprise software development companies that develop such software applications for both. However, public services do not imply government-based websites only, but they are those websites that are developed using standard-compliant browsers.

What Are Standard Compliant Browsers?

The term ‘Compliance’ simply means a rule or a regulation, which is if applied to any act, that act is then to be pursued implementing that particular rule. Similarly, there is standard compliance for websites and the web browser according to which the development is to be done in such a way that anyone in the future could operate with it easily.

In simple words, the website is supposed to be developed for public use, so that it does not require permission from the first developer to modify it ever again.

This liberty of being modified by any developer ahead of time can somehow be termed as ‘interoperability’.

Now, let us see how progressive web applications are useful to developers and would like to try to explore the global aspect of PWA’s getting in trend and why?

What Are The Characteristics Of PWA’s?

Progressive web applications are such web development solutions that can be downloaded from the internet by any developer, uploaded back to the internet by implementing its desired changes as per the requirements.

All that has to be made sure is-

  1. The website should meet the installability requirements.
  2. The website should be secured with HTTPS so that the content might not get manipulated.
  3. It must have some connectivity independence so that the service workers would be able to access the website at low network speeds or even at offline mode.

Overall, there must be technical baseline criteria for a website to be called a progressive web application. Apart from this, we should now move on to why it is in trend nowadays?

Why PWAs Have Been Trending?

Progressive web applications are initially brought up as a quickly usable concept by Google itself. After its introduction to the technology world, Microsoft and Apple are found utilizing and working on this technology more to date.

The best part of why they are in trend is because of the experience they provide which is almost like a mobile app only. PWAs can be added to the home screen and can be used as an application.

There are some of the advantages of using PWAs and also, they strongly suggest why they should be used-

1. PWAs are ultimately the websites, therefore, can be searched through search engines as well, if not added or installed in as an application to the home screen. Experts say that Google even encourages the PWAs and puts them on the very first page when searched.

2. PWAs are said to load without even better network speed, which makes them the most desirable thing today. However, there is no shortage of data today but the usage of data has increased to such a level that most of the people end up utilizing their daily limits by the evening only.

Therefore, a worthwhile solution and if can be utilized without better network speed necessarily is undoubtedly a desirable feature of PWAs.

3. The more time a website takes to launch or load, the more it would tend to lose its users instantaneously. Long loading time is the first and most responsible factor for the bounce rate of any website. PWAs are way far from this problem, as they launch even without the internet.

It is stated by the users and experts that PWAs usually takes less than 3 seconds to load and open at all. Also, an analytical report says that almost half of the total users prefer not to wait more than 3 seconds for an application or a website to launch for them. They either switch to the other or decide to open it somewhere else sometimes later.

4. However, the PWAs are developed for all the platforms and devices with complete scalability and responsiveness. Despite that, it requires just one coding platform to further develop as a website or an application.

5. Because it can be installed and added to the home screen directly through the web browsers only, it is cost-efficient as well by having the app store charges saved.

There are other benefits of progressive web application development for the users as it allows push notifications to be sent when there is no internet connection. Also, it allows its users to subscribe and unsubscribe from the push notification service.

QA Testing & PWAs

As far as testing is concerned, PWAs are tested for their scalability and responsiveness more than their features.

A PWA should run on any platform irrespectively. Also, its features and specifications are not anyways a matter of testing because each user would implement or add the features accordingly. After all, that is the real objective of bringing PWAs to the technology world.

Secondly, PWAs are tested for their reliability and the guidelines that ensure they remain usable as per the standard compliance.

Final words: About Any Latest Technology Like PWA

Technology is an infinite line that will never be going to end if approached for its end. However, there is a limit up to which a human could afford at a particular time, but there isn’t the same for its scope of development.

PWAs are solving one of the biggest problems of today’s world, and this is all an invention all about. An invention must be solving a problem to be called an invention. A new device or solution developed using the same idea isn’t an invention but only an idea that is reimplemented to develop the same thing again.

PWAs are website cum applications, but they are solving a problem of ease of use, quick installation as well as accessibility, etc. It is offering generic accessibility which no other platform dedicated solution would ever render.