A website is like a shop window for businesses that attract customers online. To make this tool efficient, companies must optimize their websites according to the latest user demands and preferences. Each year, website development changes. New design techniques and technologies make pages faster, handier, and more appealing. Study these 10 website development trends of 2022 to keep up with the competition. 

1. Progressive Web Applications (PWAs)

Today, users need more than just a website. Unlike native apps, web applications don’t need to be installed on your computer or phone. They can run in web browsers. Modern web software development takes this technology even further with progressive web applications. 

PWAs can be used directly from a website, so you don’t have to download them. PWAs combine the features of a website and the functionality of an application. Users can enjoy the experience of a native app. At the same time, PWAs allow you to use most of the device features, such as push notifications. They are lighter than native apps, faster, and provide real-time data access. 

Although progressive web applications aren’t totally new, we are going to see more of them in 2022. 

2. Mixed Reality

Up until recently, virtual and augmented reality were mostly used in the gaming industry. However, as these technologies become more available, businesses aim at capitalizing on the opportunity they offer. VR and AR enable such industries as tourism, retail, or architecture to showcase their offers in a much more engaging way than traditional images and videos. 

Moreover, as more people work from home now, some websites like Spatial now allow you to meet with your colleagues in virtual reality. So, we will be seeing more VR and AR in website development this year. 

3. Better Voice Search

The smart speaker market will reach $8.14 billion in 2022 and $16.47 billion by 2027. Voice recognition is no longer a funny but buggy technology for the rich. By 2025, about 75% of US households will own a smart speaker. In addition, voice recognition makes life easier for people with vision disorders. It is also expected to find use in IoT systems. 

Even now, about 20% of all internet searches are voice-based. So, companies that want to rank higher on search results, must optimize their websites for voice search.

4. Motion User Interface

Users thrive for interactions. Many of them find the old-school static design boring. Thanks to Motion UI, websites and mobile apps are now becoming more responsive and elegant.

Motion UI is a SASS library that allows developers to easily create CSS transitions and animations. With this tool, you can both implement pre-made transitions and create your own. By 2022, this technology has become more accessible, making motion a new website development trend. 

5. Serverless Architecture

Previously, developing an app or a website also involved managing servers. Developers had to maintain the hardware, create backups, take care of software, and so on. But the new approach allows them to hand these responsibilities over to a third-party provider. 

In this case, developers can fully focus on individual functions of their apps. The provider takes care of the infrastructure: the physical hardware, virtual machine OS, and the server software. 

6. Single-Page Applications

People hate waiting for web pages to load. If a user doesn’t see the content in about 3 seconds after clicking the link, he or she will most likely leave the site. One way to avoid it is to make your website faster. But as users expect to see more heavy media files on web pages, this method becomes insufficient. 

That’s why single-page applications will become another website development trend of 2022. A web browser loads the entire page from the server. A SPA dynamically rewrites its content without refreshing the entire page. 

7. Mobile-First

In Q4 of 2021, more than half of global internet traffic was generated by mobile devices (excluding tablets). Making websites mobile-friendly has been a trend for quite some time. However, developers expect Google to implement mobile-first indexing. In other words, a site’s ranking will soon be determined by its responsiveness, i.e. how well it is adapted for different mobile devices. 

8. AI Chatbots

Although chatbots are not new in website development, their capabilities are now moving beyond what we could imagine a couple of years ago. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, and data retrieval methods are making chatbots much more versatile. They enhance customer experience, respond to their behavior, accumulate analytics, and more. 

9. No-Code/Low-Code Development

No-code and low-code development platforms (NCDP and LCDP) allow users to build websites with little or no professional knowledge. Even inexperienced people can design a website with drag-and-drop tools, as well as pre-built design templates and code blocks. 

10. Dark Mode UI

Up until now, most website designers would recommend using white background for your site. But in recent years, users started to prefer darker UI over traditional light mode. Dark mode makes it more comfortable to read web pages at night. That’s why many businesses allow users to switch the UI design of their websites and apps. So, in 2022 this feature is expected to become a standard. 

You can find more information on web software development and software development in general on Integra Sources website.