What is pwa ? Why we should use Progressive Web Apps in 2023

Progressive web apps are the next big thing for the mobile web. Originally Google proposed them in 2015, but these apps have attracted a lot of attention since then. The fault mostly fell on the relative ease of development and the almost instant wins for the application’s user experience.

But what are they? Also as with many technologies, PWAs raise questions such as “is it what my customers want?”, “how much will it grow my business?”, “what is technically feasible?”

 

What are Progressive Web Apps?

At their core, Progressive Web Apps are just web applications. By utilizing progressive enhancement, PWA reaches new capabilities in modern browsers. Using service workers and a web app manifest, your web application becomes reliable and installable.  Even if the new capabilities aren’t available, users get to experience the core idea.

The numbers don’t lie! Companies that have launched Progressive Web Apps have seen impressive results.

For example, Twitter saw a 65% increase in pages per session, 75% more Tweets, and a 20% decrease in bounce rate, all while reducing the size of their app by over 97%.

These Apps offer you with a unique opportunity to deliver a web experience your users will fall in love with. It gives people the opportunity to be install any app built by anyone, anywhere, on any device and only with a single codebase.

What’s the difference between Progressive Web Apps and Native Mobile Apps?

PWA:

• Only one app for all devices, which results in shorter time to market
• Lower development and maintains coast
• There is no need to submit your app for app store (however if you wish, you can easily do it.)
• The installation process is done fully by browser, which increases the number of installations
• Updates are made automatically, there is no need to push updates through app stores
• Users can easily find PWA pages in Google

 

Native Apps

• Separate apps for different operating systems (IOS, Android)
• More expensive to develop and maintains
• The process of lunching app in app store totally depends on publishers so you don’t know if or when the app will be published
• The installation process is multi-step and each additional step that user preform probably will cost you 20% customer drop out
• Needs systematic updates
• No SEO benefits
• Needs to be found and downloaded from app store
• Push notifications available

 

Core Progressive Web App Properties

• Starts fast, stays fast

There is no doubt that performance plays a significant role in the success of any online experience. Because high performing sites engage and retain users better than poorly performing ones. Sites should focus on optimizing for user-centric performance metrics.

Speed is essential for keeping users on your app. In fact, as page load times go from one second to ten seconds, the probability of a user bouncing increases by 123%.

But it doesn’t stop there with the load event. Users should never wonder whether their interaction—say, clicking a button—was registered or not. Scrolling and animation need to be smooth. Performance affects their entire experience, from how users perceive your application to how it actually performs.

 

• Works in any browser

It’s important that users could use any browser they choose to access your web app before it’s installed.

Progressive Web Apps are also web apps, thus they need to work across browsers, not just in one of them.

 

An effective way of doing so is identifying the core functionality, making that functionality available using the simplest possible technology, and then enhancing the experience where possible. Which in many cases, means starting with just HTML to create the core functionality, and enhancing the user experience with CSS and JavaScript to create a more engaging experience.

 

• Responsive to any screen size

Users can use your PWA on any screen size and all the content is available at any viewport size.

Nowadays devices come in a range of sizes, and your application might display in a range of sizes, even on the same device. Therefore, you need to make sure that firstly, your content not only fits within the viewport, secondly all features and content of your site are usable at all viewport sizes.

 

• Provides a custom offline page

When users are offline, instead of the default boring browser offline page, keeping them in your PWA provides a seamless experience.

Users expect installed apps to work regardless of their connection status. A platform-specific app never shows a blank page when it is offline, and a Progressive Web App should never show the browser default offline page.

 

• Is installable

Users who install or add apps to their device tend to engage with those apps more.

A Progressive Web App looks, feels, and behaves like all other installed apps. It’s launched from the same place users launch their other apps. It runs in its own app window, separate from the browser, and it appears in the task list, just like other apps.

You want a user to install your app from an app store and you would want them to install your PWA. Users who install your apps are your most engaged audience, and have better engagement metrics than typical visitors. These metrics include more repeat visits, longer times on your site and higher conversion rates.

The Progressive Web App Checklist describes what makes an app installable and usable by all users, regardless of size or input type.

 

PWAs provides what customer needs

Over all, customers prefer experiences that are fast, installable, reliable, and engaging.

PWA projects result to higher mobile conversion rate. Depending on your objectives, you may prioritize the aspects of PWAs that make more sense for your business, and it’s completely OK. PWA features can be cherry-picked and launched separately.

• fast loading and runtime
• mobile-first approach
• offline mode
• SEO- and crawler-friendly architecture
• platform-independency

 

What Are the PWA Development Requirements?

For Progressive Web App development, you need to secure a number of elements:

• A secure connection (HTTPS)

PWA development needs a secure server with a HTTPS connection. This way both user data is protected and an extra layer of security within your website is built.

 

• Service workers

one of the key elements of Progressive Web Apps development, which helps to determine how to handle network requests. A service worker is a client-side JavaScript file added to the codebase, which is working in the background to mimic app-like features.

 

• PWA Manifest file

generating a simple JSON file (PWA manifest file) which provides the browser with information about the look and behavior of your PWA, once installed on a user’s mobile device, is necessary.

It contains basic information like the app name, used icons or colors, and aims to enhance a native app-like experience.

Should your business rely on PWA development?

E-commerce businesses observe relatively high mobile traffic on their websites, but usually it doesn’t mean high conversions. To enhance this ration, you need a responsive site with a UX tailored to mobile devices. The easiest, fastest and lowest cost way to achieve this is through Progressive Web App.

Progressive Web Apps are on a lot of companies’ roadmap to modernize their websites and adapt to users’ new expectations. But as it’s a new kind of technology, you need to carefully choose who you are going to trust in managing this new tool for you. In Insanustu, we give significant business capabilities to e-commerce vendors who want to close their mobile gap.

our blog about what is prototyping may help you to produce better pwa! take a look at it 🙂

Why Insanustu?

• Our PWA size wise is much smaller than native apps, so it loads faster, works better over low-bandwidth networks and thus takes up less space on the user’s device.
• PWAs synchronize data in the background even when the user is not active. The app is always updated with the latest version.
• Insanustu is fully searchable and index able contrary to native apps.
• PWA delivers a responsive and smooth shopping experience, so you don’t necessary to develop apps for different web browsers and platforms anymore.