It is well-known that the world of eCommerce is in the midst of change, and one of the most important ones is the shift to mobile websites. With smartphones practically permanently attached to most people’s hands on this planet, websites ought to step up their game, adapt to changing user behavior, and make themselves mobile-friendly. It is an inevitable part of the deal to optimize, enhance UX/UI, accelerate page loads, and add cool new features. The reason most web development services company create advanced web applications is because of this. What exactly is a PWA? Is this the best option out there? This article will explore the PWA issue, explain what it is, and discuss its challenges. Let’s get started!
What Exactly Is a PWA?
A progressive web application is a hybrid between a web app and an app. Not the typical way that we think about mobile applications. Essentially, it’s a mobile-friendly version of a web application built using modern frameworks. There are several strengths to it, including the fact that it is extremely fast, very intuitive to use, visualizes like any other excellent native app you are used to, and it doesn’t even need to be uploaded to the device.
Responsive sites have all elements perfectly optimized for mobile devices. Consequently, the menu, cart, and account areas are conveniently located in the right corner of the screen. Since the icons are more than adequate, there is no need for text to identify the sections. A convenient search bar is found at the top of the screen, and the first view offers all the information that users might need. Other pages, such as product and category pages, are designed well from a UX and UI perspective. A simple filter system, easy-to-scroll gallery images, and everything thumb-reachable are among the many features of this application.
Challenges Of Progressive web application
The development of the PWA
It’s not easy to create a progressive web application. The process requires skilled developers with a lot of coding experience. PWAs can be built in several ways, and while there are ready-made out-of-the-box solutions, they aren’t complete (capable of covering all needs). At the same time, they aren’t customizable. As a result, amateur developers will probably have trouble creating the app under any circumstances since unique code will be required.
Managing SEO properly
It’s a common perception that progressive web apps can damage a website’s search engine optimization. Since the app doesn’t perform page rendering like a standard website, Google bots may see the pages as empty ones without content because the app doesn’t behave like a typical website. The cost of purchasing a progressive web application is a huge barrier for business owners. You need not worry about a PWA hurting your SEO since that’s just a rumor. During the app’s creation, if an experienced programmer solves the problem, some loopholes accommodate server-side and client-side rendering solutions. Users will experience faster pages this way, and bots and search engines will crawl the web pages.
Scores on Web Vitals are low
Web Vitals can score your application low, even though it may provide users with a seamless user experience. A score promotes the pages that offer the fastest possible first page-load to the user in most cases. It’s easy to forget about this first load when you build a single-page application (SPA). In place of that, you should concentrate on optimizing the user experience and interactions after the first load by using caching and service workers. Low scores can be attributed to an app’s JS bundle size being too large, a server-side rendering that generates HTML code too complex, or an input latency that is too low.
The legacy back-end platform
A headless architecture is usually used in PWAs, but it isn’t required. This means that the back-end platform you plan to integrate must provide you with the required API. Being fast and covering all the features is imperative. There is usually a problem with this. Salesforce Commerce Cloud and other such platforms often require you to build gateways around the platform’s API because it’s not efficient.
Maintenance and hosting are complex
Despite its lack of direct connection with PWA technology, it is often closely linked to it. PWAs are headless applications that combine a variety of services. Microservices are deployed in content management systems (CMSs), e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRMs), and customized functions. The situation becomes worse when you upgrade the technologies. It may be difficult for the PHP team to support Node.js apps, which have a completely different memory management model.
Challenges besides these
There are other minor drawbacks, such as the fact that native applications are easier to monetize. With a PWA, that won’t be easy to accomplish. In addition, when it comes to creating games, native apps are still considered superior. Furthermore, if you have an existing native application that your users enjoy, creating a Progressive Web App might be worth the effort.
Some benefits of PWA
Wherever there are challenges, there are also benefits. So finally, let us see some of the benefits of PWA.
- Their response time is lightning fast
- They take up no storage space
- You can use them offline & get push notifications
- Developing them is much cheaper.
- As far as UX/UI are concerned, they resemble native apps
CONCLUSION
Progressive web application technology is undoubtedly the way of the future. There is no surprise that many even predict that native applications will be entirely replaced at some point by these solutions. You can drastically increase conversions from mobile devices by using this solution because it’s fast, cheap to develop, and users love it.
Author Bio
Prashant Pujara is the founder and CEO of MultiQoS Technologies, a backend development Company in USA. Overseeing business and delivery operations, strategic planning, and developing future road maps are among his duties.
