Technology & Product: All

What if Facebook had never integrated its updates and we still were using its original interface the Social Media Network began with? Sounds pretty dull, right? Would you like to return to the newsfeed of 2009 or prefer the profile layout before the timeline was introduced in 2011?

The decade since the mighty social media network went live, is a saga of enormous makeovers and its transformation from a cluttered catch-all news feed to a sophisticated and personalized timeline as we know today. The Facebook’s evolution story is a clear demonstration of why it is important to change, evolve and stay at the top of the trends, otherwise; you will probably be wiped out as thousands of new websites are pouring into the internet every day.

Why it is important to follow the latest web design trends?

The web development industry is growing at an incredible speed. Every year, the industry goes through numerous changes and new features are being explored helping the webs to stay relevant and inspiring. From functionality to typography to new visual concepts, it’s now mandatory for designers to stay up-to-date as there is no other option than to keep up.

As a web developer or a digital marketer, it’s sometimes hard to navigate and explore the latest trends as the industry is constantly moving forward. Trends that are famous this year will probably be considered archaic in the next year.

We have made our predictions on the web development trends that would rule the last quarter of 2017 and the beginning of 2018.

1. Artificial intelligenceAI is getting more and more ingrained in our daily lives. The basic purpose of artificial intelligence in the web and mobile apps is to help the users with small and intellectual chores, like finding out the best dog breed for tropical regions or where the nearest Sushi restaurant is located.Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook successfully used AI in web development, and now it is permeating more and more into the digital realm. Facebook uses the AI for face recognition, translation of text between the languages and more.Here are some of the AI objectives that make it a must-have feature for website,

   Better Customer Experience

   The significant purpose of AI is to predict the mood of customers and understand his priorities. With the help of statistical analysis and experimentation, AI can help a website provide a better user experience. It also helps the marketers to minimize the errors from customer’s perspective and process and execute large amounts of data efficiently.

   Better Reply Predictions

   No one likes to interact with Bots. We, humans, are emotional beings and wish to be treated that way. With artificial intelligence, it is now possible to understand customer’ emotions and communicate with them more efficiently. The purpose of chatbots is to make the customer’s interaction more natural and remove all the communication barriers.

   The popularity of Voice Search

   The internet user today is far less patient than it was like 10 years ago. The user today wants to get information faster and easier. The main purpose is to enhance the user experience and provide him with multiple search options. Voice search is becoming increasingly popular among the cool kids of the tech industry and now is an integral part of website development service.

2. SSL & HTTPSSSL (Secure Socket Layer) is the backbone of a website’s security, and it protects all the sensitive information traveling across is the internet. According to Digicert, 43% of the users abandon a site when they receive a security alert message. SSL is an essential feature for every website, even if it doesn’t involve the use of sensitive information like bank details or credit cards.The primary purpose of SSL is to provide critical security, privacy and data integrity for your website as well as increase the customer’s trust. Here are some of the further objectives of SSL & HTTPS,
   1. When an SSL certificate is used, the data transferred is encrypted, and the information is unreadable to everyone except the destination servers. This protects sensitive data from hackers and imposters trying to steal information.
   2. The SSL certificate provides authentication. This means you can recheck if you are sending the information to the right sever, especially when you require sending the information to various computers.
   3. Google and all other search engines prefer the sites that are more secure. This means that HTTPS has the upper hand over HTTP because it provides the secure and private user experience.
3. Gifs and AnimationThe use of GIFS and animation is currently a popular trend in web design. Every day we see hundreds of GIFs in our messenger and conversations. Smart web designers have utilized this as a feature in web apps for better engagement with users. Gifs make the user happy and giggle and also enrich the design layout. Moreover, visual information is far more appealing than plain text and user finds it more interesting to watch the videos as compared to text. Animations, GIFS, and sophisticated visual elements keep the user’s interest intact and help you to tell a better brand story.
4. Mobile Responsive DesignSince 2012 we have seen a major shift of internet users moving from desktop to mobile phones. 60% of the website traffic in the United States comes from mobile phones, and by each passing day, mobile usage continues to grow. It is very crucial for a site to set a design layout that is mobile friendly.In past couple of years, we have seen a lot of websites having two versions of their site. One is the primary site for the desktop, and the other is a mobile version of their site. However, this practice is gradually coming to an end as responsive web development in the first place is a preferred method. Mobile responsive web design is not an option anymore, it’s a must have and if your website is not mobile friendly, start thinking about it today.
5. Internet of ThingsInternet of things and artificial intelligence go hand in hand as the fundamental purpose is to make the devices better and enable them to communicate with each other. We have stepped in the next generation digital world where users demand internet to allow them to control every facet of their lives.Now the job of web developer is to produce apps that would allow the users to remotely control all the household devices through internet devices and also help them in better device communication and data analysis.Amazon echo’s voice assistant, Alexa is a perfect example of IoT. The virtual assistant performs various functions like play music, provide a weather report, and get sports scores, order an Uber and more. (Reminds me of Samantha from the movie “Her”)

Conclusion

We can clearly observe that the web development is quickly moving towards the possible user needs where the sites should be interactive, personal and relevant. Staying updated with the recent trends is now an integral and crucial part of website development. The above-mentioned web-development trends are guaranteed to help you create a website that your client, as well as the end user, will adore.

Good Luck!!

A majority of JavaScript developers last year experienced some major challenges. If you are a developer, then you must know that ECMA Script 6 was finally standardised and published. Many renowned compilers as well as web browsers are working very hard to adapt the latest changes and regulations. It is more or less necessary to immerse yourself within a strong and systematic guide, which discusses all the facets of latest standard.

Handpicked Node.js frameworks just for you

With the ongoing Node.js, JavaScript technology has come to the mainstream. JavaScript was already a popular programming language — widely used by millions of developers in browsers. However, with Node.js, the run-time language has found a new way to server-side applications, and minimise the difficulty of using two different languages at same platforms. It has single threaded event loop as well as asynchronous and non-blocking input or output processing characteristic that distinguishes it from other runtime scenarios.

The opportunity is increasing by leaps and bounds with many valuable contributions, from the community of developers to technology specialists. We have seen many performance driven frameworks utilising primary principles as well as approaches of Node.js. Here, we are discussing some of the rated Node.js frameworks that have extended its core functionality and have built latest features.

Hapi.js

Hapi.js is one of the most powerful Node.js web frameworks for creating or building the application program interfaces, shortly known as APIs. It is also good for building other software applications. The framework has a strong plugin system and different features, some of them are, input validation, configuration based functionality, logging and error handling among various others.

Hapi.js is widely used by thousands of developers for designing useful applications. Also, it is preferable to use for giving technology solutions by many large-scale websites such as PayPal and Walmart.

Features of Hapi.js:

• Especially good for passing around a DB connection
• Known as go-to-technology for both startups and enterprises
• Works as a stable, secure solution as well as helps deploying application
• Good structure to work in a team

Socket.io

Socket.io is a powerful Node.js, a great server framework for creating or building real-time web applications. As a strong JavaScript library, it allows developers to build event-driven, bi-directional communication between the Web clients and service in a quick and easy way.

This framework not only allows real-time concurrency for the sake of document collaboration but also exchange the key features, like asynchronous input or output processing and binary streaming.

Features of Socket.io:

• Enables interaction between a browser and a node.js server
• Good for the purpose of http
• Wonderful real-time web application
• Works well as a client-side library that runs in the browser as well as a server-side library for the purpose of Node.js

Express.js

Express.js is among the most popular and important web frameworks for Node.js developments. Many developers say it is a useful minimalist framework for creating or building a web host as well as mobile applications and helpful for building application programming interfaces, shortly known as APIs. Many applications are there have used express.js, some of them are MySpace, Segment.io and Geekli.st.

This Node.js framework offers a wide range of features such as temple engines and database integration.

Features of Express.js:

• Powerful and useful minimalist framework to create a web host and mobile application
• Good for temple engines and database integration
• Affective standard server framework for Node.js

Mojito

Mojito is the best JavaScript framework, which is based on Yahoo, cocktails and another most powerful mobile application development platform produced by Yahoo Developer Network.

The best part of using Mojito is that it runs on both client- and server-side, browser and Node.js. Many developers use this framework because client as well as server components both are written in JS and Mojito is good for them. It is a powerful model-view controller framework, offering a range of features.

Features of Mojito:

• Good for convenient data fetching
• Perfect for the purpose of local development environment as well as tools
• Designed for integrated unit testing
• Suitable for simplifying library internationalisation and localisation

Meteor

Meteor is a very useful open source MVC (model view controller) Node.js framework used for building websites, web and mobile applications. The majority of developers these days use this Node.js framework for various purposes including web application development.

This framework supports macOS, Linux and Windows. Its reactive programming model helps building applications using powerful lesser JavaScript code. Further, it is a highly popular powerful framework for creating real-time applications.

Features of Meteor:

• Good for rapid prototyping and produces cross-platform code
• Can be used with any JS UI
• Supports OS X, Linux and Windows
• Quickly integrated with MongoDB

Web and application development landscape is changing rapidly. Developers in different parts of the world are shifting to Node.js frameworks for easy, clean and quick project delivery.

One of the biggest advantages of using Node.js frameworks is the high-level output and structure. You can easily focus on scaling your application instead of spending efforts in creating and defining the basics.

Firebase is a Google mobile platform that helps you quickly develop high quality apps and thereby scale your business. This article covers the range of services it offers to the user.

Firebase started off as a real-time database in 2011 and saw some traction in key applications. The real upswing for the platform came about when Google acquired it in 2014, and since then a significant number of features have been developed for this database. It has now become a complete platform that provides services for development, testing, distribution, analytics and more.

Firebase categorises its services into two areas that help you do the following:

• Develop and test your application
• Grow and engage your audience

Multiple services are then provided under each of these areas. You may or may not use all of them but Google has done a good job of explaining the scenarios for which you will need these services. In fact, years of mobile application development experience, coupled with Google engaging with the growing number of mobile users, has resulted in commonly used application development and growth strategies along with the tools that are needed to make a mobile application successful.

Let us look at the two categories of services and see what Firebase has to offer.

Develop and test your application

The key thing, initially, is to develop your mobile application. For this, Firebase provides multiple services and its key module here is the Firebase Realtime Database. This database is fully managed by Google and is akin to a Database-as-a-Service model. It provides SDKs on popular mobile platforms like Android and iOS, and it’s a breeze to integrate the functionality into your application. The Firebase database allows multiple users to update it and also provides synchronisation across multiple users.

Now, let us understand what more we need from a mobile development perspective. Here are some of the requirements, other than the core business functionality that you are going to build into your application:

1. Collaboration across devices
2. Centralised crash reporting in case of mobile application errors
3. Authentication via multiple Auth providers
4. Use of optional cloud storage and long running back-end processes for some of your mobile app’s functionality
5. Test your app on multiple phone models before release
6. Performance monitoring of your app while it is in the field

Each of the above requirements has a matching service that is provided as part of the Firebase platform, and these are covered below.

Firebase Realtime Database:As mentioned earlier, this is a fully managed real-time database that helps in collaboration by sharing the updates across all the devices that use the database. You can integrate the mobile SDKs into your applications and can get notified of database updates via subscriptions, e.g., write a few lines of Android code and you have a real-time collaboration facility in your application.

Crash reporting:Your mobile applications can report errors via Firebase crash reporting APIs that are available on both iOS and Android. The errors can be viewed in a centralised error console and it even categorises the error reports on the basis of the devices, application versions, OS versions and more.

Firebase Performance Monitoring:Mobile users are very particular about an application’s performance and expect it to perform optimally. Firebase Performance Monitoring is a service that helps you track your app’s performance in multiple areas of network, latency, memory consumption, app start-up time and more. The key is to proactively monitor these attributes and react well before your users report the issue to you. The performance monitoring SDKs are available for both Android and iOS.

Firebase Test Lab:Procuring multiple phones to test your application is a challenge. It is almost impossible to keep up to speed with multiple OS versions, devices and other characteristics. Firebase Test Lab is a service that allows you to test out your application on multiple devices and ensure that it works well before its release to a wider audience. It integrates with Android Studio, Web Browser and Continuous Integration tools. The Firebase Test Lab is currently available for Android only.

Firebase cloud functions and storage:Modern applications deal with multiple kinds of data. It is not always structured information and often you might have media formats like files, videos, images, audio and more. This is where Firebase cloud storage comes in, which provides economies of scale and cost, apart from ease of use. There are scenarios in which you might want to test some long running processes or back-end functionality as part of your mobile app but you do not want this to affect the user. Firebase cloud functions allow the user to initiate operations on the app while you can run the functionality in the back-end.

Let’s consider a use case for cloud functions. Say you are developing an imaging mobile app that allows people to upload their pictures. As part of the final image, you might need to generate thumbnails of the images. Instead of doing all this as part of the mobile app and making the user wait, you can simply upload the image into cloud storage. Once the file is uploaded, it can kick off a cloud function that will process the image data and generate multiple thumbnails. All this is done in the background and the user need not wait for it.

Firebase authentication:Mobile apps today need to offer multiple authentication providers so people can use one or more of their online identities for authentication purposes. They might want to use Google, Facebook and other accounts to sign in to your application. Without an easy-to-use SDK that provides simple connectivity to all these authentication providers, it is a challenge to build this into the app. Firebase authentication is the end-to-end identity solution that supports email/password accounts, phone Auth, Google, Twitter, Facebook, GitHub login and more.

Grow and engage your audience

The previous section touched upon the multiple services in Firebase that help you develop and test your application. These services are available both during the development phase and even later, when people are using your mobile application.

To grow and enable your mobile audience, you need multiple features like notifying your users of important events or any subscriptions that they might have in the application. In addition, analytics and advertising is a way that you can potentially understand your audience’s demographics and behaviour in order to release targeted advertisements, which could be a monetisation strategy for you. Some other features include how users can search for your mobile applications, how you can push remote configurations back to the mobile devices and more. The Firebase umbrella provides multiple such services, including bringing within its ambit services like AdMob, Adwords and Google Analytics that have been around for several years.

Firebase has come a long way and has taken centrestage at the last two Google I/Os, the flagship developer conference of the company, with multiple announcements being made. It provides a complete suite of services for your mobile application needs, with SDKs available on popular mobile platforms to help you build, test, measure, distribute and analyse your mobile applications. If it has been a while since you looked at Firebase, it would be worth checking it out now.