What are Progressive Web Apps?
Today we will talk about Progressive Web Apps. For those who know what PWA's are, you can enjoy the article and reinforce your knowledge on the topic. For those who don't know what a PWA is, buck your seatbelt, you are about to learn something awesome!
Progressive Web Applications are built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The websites work both on desktops and mobile browsers. Progressive Web Apps are web applications build with APIs. It allows developers to deliver apps with native capabilities. The apps are cross-platform, allowing you to reach an extensive audience. The three adjectives that describe Progressive Web Apps are Capable, Reliable, and installable.
Capability
Let's start by defining the capability of Progressive Web Apps. Many features are empowering these apps. You can build apps with WEBRTC, geolocation, push notifications, among others. Developers can include other ecosystems like C, C++, and Rust.
This could only be done with native apps. PWA has changed the game, as we can see, it allows to create apps with native capabilities through the use of APIs.
Reliability
Every reliable app, either a Progressive Web App or not, it has to be fast, and dependable regardless of the network that is running it.
Imagine if you have an application that takes 10 seconds to load a page, you don't expect the user to come back, do you? Pageloads should not exceed 3 seconds, it is studied that if it takes more, 53% of the users don't come back, and some even close the page without using it. So, speed is a critical part of your webpage.
Network connections cannot influence your website's reliability. It has to be built in a way, where networks are an independent factor of the reliability of your webpage. There are some times where requesting data to a server is harder than other times.
Developers must work hard on ensuring that when it's hard, it should be available anyways. In case there's a network error, not allowing the PWA to run smoothly, make sure to have alerts for the user so it knows what's going on. Following this procedure, you make sure you can retain users from leaving the page.
Easy to install
Instead of running in a browser tab, Progressive Web Apps are installed and run in a standalone window. Users can launch the app from their home screen or dock. After installing the app new capabilities become available.
Main Characteristics of Progressive Web Apps
- Progressive: Works for every user, no matter what browser it uses. It follows the progressive principles.
- Responsive: Fits all forms: Desktop, Mobile, Tablet.
- Fast loading: The initial load is faster, and the content doesn’t have to be downloaded each time it is used. On PWA's the elements are not re-rendered.
- Network independence: It allows offline use and low-quality network to load pages correctly.
- Safe: Served via HTTPS, it prevents snooping and secures content.
- Discoverable: Easily discovered by search engines.
- Re-engageable: You can use push notifications to notify the user.
Statistics for Progressive Web Apps
Some companies have launched Progressive Web Apps and today we will show you the results.
- Twitter launched a PWA and saw a 65% increase in their pages per session. 75% more Tweets, and 20% decreased in their bounce rate. The size of their app was reduced by 97%.
- Nikkei achieved 2.3 times more traffic to its website, a 58% increase in their subscriptions, and a 49% increase in their daily active users.
- Hulu migrated their desktop application to a progressive web application and increased their returning visits by 27%.
- All key performance indicators have shown PWA's success increased time spent on page, conversions, and revenue.
A Progressive Web App closes the gap between a Web App and a Native App. It is already tried and tested that Progressive Web Apps can perform better and run faster across all devices. The fact that you can build a cross-platform application all in one place and know that it will work better than a standard web app should make you consider migrating your service to PWA.
Research shows several things about PWA and customer experience. Users prefer not to use a website than to use a website that loads slow. The stress caused is greater than the satisfaction of using the webpage. The majority of mobile users prefer to use web apps rather than installing an app. Most users limit themselves to installing apps because of their storage limit. The good news is that an installed PWA is usually less than 1MB.
In conclusion, there are many benefits to developing Progressive Web Applications, today we saw how these applications are highly capable, are easy to install, and are very reliable. Many big companies have migrated their service to a PWA. Twitter, Nikkei, Hulu, and other companies have seen success. Progressive Web Apps have redefined the capacity of web applications.
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Back
Today we will talk about Progressive Web Apps. For those who know what PWA's are, you can enjoy the article and reinforce your knowledge on the topic. For those who don't know what a PWA is, buck your seatbelt, you are about to learn something awesome!
Progressive Web Applications are built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The websites work both on desktops and mobile browsers. Progressive Web Apps are web applications build with APIs. It allows developers to deliver apps with native capabilities. The apps are cross-platform, allowing you to reach an extensive audience. The three adjectives that describe Progressive Web Apps are Capable, Reliable, and installable.
Capability
Let's start by defining the capability of Progressive Web Apps. Many features are empowering these apps. You can build apps with WEBRTC, geolocation, push notifications, among others. Developers can include other ecosystems like C, C++, and Rust.
This could only be done with native apps. PWA has changed the game, as we can see, it allows to create apps with native capabilities through the use of APIs.
Reliability
Every reliable app, either a Progressive Web App or not, it has to be fast, and dependable regardless of the network that is running it.
Imagine if you have an application that takes 10 seconds to load a page, you don't expect the user to come back, do you? Pageloads should not exceed 3 seconds, it is studied that if it takes more, 53% of the users don't come back, and some even close the page without using it. So, speed is a critical part of your webpage.
Network connections cannot influence your website's reliability. It has to be built in a way, where networks are an independent factor of the reliability of your webpage. There are some times where requesting data to a server is harder than other times.
Developers must work hard on ensuring that when it's hard, it should be available anyways. In case there's a network error, not allowing the PWA to run smoothly, make sure to have alerts for the user so it knows what's going on. Following this procedure, you make sure you can retain users from leaving the page.
Easy to install
Instead of running in a browser tab, Progressive Web Apps are installed and run in a standalone window. Users can launch the app from their home screen or dock. After installing the app new capabilities become available.
Main Characteristics of Progressive Web Apps
- Progressive: Works for every user, no matter what browser it uses. It follows the progressive principles.
- Responsive: Fits all forms: Desktop, Mobile, Tablet.
- Fast loading: The initial load is faster, and the content doesn’t have to be downloaded each time it is used. On PWA's the elements are not re-rendered.
- Network independence: It allows offline use and low-quality network to load pages correctly.
- Safe: Served via HTTPS, it prevents snooping and secures content.
- Discoverable: Easily discovered by search engines.
- Re-engageable: You can use push notifications to notify the user.
Statistics for Progressive Web Apps
Some companies have launched Progressive Web Apps and today we will show you the results.
- Twitter launched a PWA and saw a 65% increase in their pages per session. 75% more Tweets, and 20% decreased in their bounce rate. The size of their app was reduced by 97%.
- Nikkei achieved 2.3 times more traffic to its website, a 58% increase in their subscriptions, and a 49% increase in their daily active users.
- Hulu migrated their desktop application to a progressive web application and increased their returning visits by 27%.
- All key performance indicators have shown PWA's success increased time spent on page, conversions, and revenue.
A Progressive Web App closes the gap between a Web App and a Native App. It is already tried and tested that Progressive Web Apps can perform better and run faster across all devices. The fact that you can build a cross-platform application all in one place and know that it will work better than a standard web app should make you consider migrating your service to PWA.
Research shows several things about PWA and customer experience. Users prefer not to use a website than to use a website that loads slow. The stress caused is greater than the satisfaction of using the webpage. The majority of mobile users prefer to use web apps rather than installing an app. Most users limit themselves to installing apps because of their storage limit. The good news is that an installed PWA is usually less than 1MB.
In conclusion, there are many benefits to developing Progressive Web Applications, today we saw how these applications are highly capable, are easy to install, and are very reliable. Many big companies have migrated their service to a PWA. Twitter, Nikkei, Hulu, and other companies have seen success. Progressive Web Apps have redefined the capacity of web applications.
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