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If you want to develop a fast, responsive, reliable, and highly engaging app, you need to follow the right steps. Agreed? Well, PWA development is no different! This blog tells you how to create an intuitive progressive web app in just eight easy steps. Stay with us!
The introduction of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) has changed the way businesses and apps developer companies think about mobile app development. PWAs are gradually taking over the traditional mobile app development and becoming quite a phenomenon. They combine the capabilities of websites and mobile software and create an app with an immersive user experience and a better conversion rate.
The internet is flooded with PWAs vs Native Apps debate. Yet many leading companies, including Starbucks, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, Twitter, Pinterest, and others have built PWAs and reported a considerable increase in user engagement. PWA technologies can help companies gain up to 12x more users and require 300x less storage than native apps.
Starbucks reported a 2x increase in their daily active user after they invested in PWA. As per Google, Twitter achieved a 65% increase in pages per session, a 75% increase in Tweets sent, and a 20% lower bounce rate. Today, Forbes PWA provides more user engagement and personalization. Forbes registered 43% more sessions per user and a 20% increase in ad viewability. The Washington Post PWA achieved an 88% decrease in load time.
These PWA stats are enough to prove why businesses of various niches, including media, social media, e-commerce solutions, food & beverages, etc are actively investing in PWA development and reaping its benefits to increase their ROI.
What Are Progressive Web Applications (PWAs)?
The progressive web app is a product of the fusion of web pages and mobile apps. PWAs combine the web and app attributes to form an app. All in all, it works as a hybrid form of a website and mobile application.
Think of it as a website built using web technologies but acts and feels like an app. PWAs have several benefits compared to native apps. A progressive web app is an app that users can load directly from a web browser. These apps support most functionalities offered by traditional apps without taking much storage space.
The Ideal Progressive Web App Development Process: 8 Easy Steps to Follow
When we hear about PWA, the word fast, reliable, and engaging starts whirling on our minds. Almost all the apps are developed the same way, and PWA is no different. So without any further ado, let’s get to know the crucial steps involved in building PWAs with improved performance and better user experience.
Step 1: Understanding and Analyzing App Requirements
At this stage, your hired app developing company understands and gauges your PWA requirements. They analyze the app’s demands, needs, intended users, and future scope thoroughly. And then, the company prepares a product roadmap accordingly.
This helps apps companies to give your app idea the required shape and turn it into an actual project. This phase is essential because, during this phase, you lay down the necessary groundwork for what is to follow next.
Step 2: App Wireframing
Once the app development company has understood the app requirements and analyzed everything related to it, it’s time for the wireframing. It’s a blueprint based on which, the apps design company will work upon. A wireframe helps apps designers to understand the PWA flow and gives an estimated idea of how the system would function. It will display the design of your app and its functionality.
Step 3: Decide Technology Stack
The technology stack can make or break your PWA development game. Hence, it’s vital to choose the apt technology stack that is the newest and fits your business needs well. PWA is usually developed using the latest web stack. PWA development usually involves JS, HTML5, and CSS. However, among all, HTML5 is considered an ideal choice for progressive web app development.
Step 4: UX/UI Designing
This step involves designing. However, designing PWA with a user-first experience is not an easy task, and requires attention. A good UX/UI design helps in discoverability, plus a compelling app design can leave a lasting impression on your potential users.
In this stage, designers take care of the overall look and feel of the app depending on your business niche, demands, and other considerable things. Adobe XD, Photoshop, and Sketch are some popular app designing tools designers can leverage.
Step 5: PWA Development
After coming together with the app design, and once the design passes the usability test, now comes the development part i.e. coding. The skilled developers take on the job from here and give your design the needed shape. The developers start coding your PWA from the scratch and ensure to build a user-oriented app.
The development phase usually consists of — alpha phase and beta phase. In the alpha phase, the core functionality of an app is developed; however, the beta phase is responsible for major features and functionalities incorporation.
Step 6: Q/A Testing
Assuring the quality is essential for anything you create, and PWA is not an exception. Q/A keeps the cost low and helps in building a qualitative app. It’s always advisable to include this process in your PWA development because the farther in you go into the mobile app development cycle, the costlier it becomes to fix the bug. Ensuring Quality Assurance at every stage of PWA development with manual and automated testing goes a long way.
Step 7: Releasing/Launching the App
Once everything (from designing to coding and testing) is done, it’s time to make your app available for end-users. Progressive web apps act and feel like native apps but are quite different from native apps when it comes to launching. Hence, you need not launch your PWA on Play Store or Apple Store. All you need to do is to allow the PWA to be installed from the browser and launched directly from the users’ device home screen.
Step 8: Post-Development Phase
You must be thinking that once the app is launched, your job is done. But that’s not the case. Your PWA shouldn’t rest if you want it to wins out. It constantly needs to improve the user experience. Therefore, your need to take the assistance of app maintenance services. They will do the regular maintenance of your app, keep your app error and glitch-free, and ensure that your users are getting a smooth app using experience.
Winding It Up
Now you know what the ideal PWA development process looks like. We hope the article helped you understand the process of progressive web app development. Implement the steps mentioned in this post intelligently and you’ll see your progressive will stand out among others and help you elevate your business. Don’t forget that PWA development is a continuous and ongoing process that never stops (and shouldn’t).
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