9 Web Development Trends to Expect in 2024

With technological advancement, the web development industry, like every other industry, witnesses significant changes in the design and development trends every year. Therefore to stay ahead of your competitors, it’s vital to keep a knee eye on the latest web development trends.

Writing this blog aims to provide web developers and designers an in-depth knowledge about the latest web development trends. But before diving deep into the core topic, let’s take a brief look into the basics of web development!

What is web development?

Web development encompasses the creation of digital platforms, commonly referred to as websites, designed to promote awareness of products and services. Through website development, businesses have the opportunity to engage with their target audience, effectively communicating the distinct value proposition of their offerings. By highlighting the unique ways in which their products or services address the specific needs and requirements of potential customers, businesses can facilitate informed decision-making and foster meaningful connections with their audience.

You can certainly achieve this goal by building a user-friendly website with exceptional and compelling web design.

From other perspective, a website is an amalgamation of different things that comprise images, fonts, colors, navigations, and simple yet meaningful content. All these are the fundamental elements that come under the category of UI/UX designing. 

Nevertheless, creating a website with the latest trends is essential to compete with the ever-evolving market. Besides this, we will also list some of the most common mistakes and misconceptions you must know before developing a website. 

Now let’s move towards discovering the latest web development trends.

Latest Web Development Trends

1. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the popular trends that has been evolving in different sectors and industries. One of the top industries that are adopting this trend is the website development industry. AI is gaining significant popularity in website design and development due to its innovative and smart features & functions. AI automation helps users to gain access to information on the website quickly and instantly. 

Businesses are integrating AI into their website primarily because of its responsiveness and sophistication. In addition, it can easily adapt to the changing trends in the web development industry. According to Statista, the worldwide artificial intelligence market is predicted to reach $126 billion by 2025.

The applications of artificial intelligence in website development are as follows:

(a) Chatbots 

AI-powered chatbots integrated into the website will improve user experience as customers can easily interact with your website. Chatbots give real-time information to the users regarding the product or service. Integrating chatbots within a website is crucial so that users can easily access your website without needing customer representatives. 

AI Chatbots use a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm to understand user queries and give them the most appropriate answer from their database. Chatbots also analyze users’ behaviors and offer recommendations and personalization based on their preferences. 

(b) Virtual assistant 

A voice-based virtual assistant works when a user asks something in their voice. It enables users to quickly find information based on voice searches. In web development, it helps manage customers’ data, emails, reminders, etc.

Some of the most popular examples of virtual assistants today are Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s virtual assistant. They are great examples of AI virtual assistants. Furthermore, the virtual assistant is smart enough to recognize faces, identify objects, and connect with other devices. 

2. Augmented reality and virtual reality

Augmented reality is an enriched version of the real-world environment. Whereas virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated 3D environment where users will appear as avatars. It’s kind of the metaverse. Both technologies are being adopted in various sectors, such as gaming, healthcare, architecture, retail, tourism, and much more. AR and VR also contribute to the web development industry and have become one of the amazing trends. 

Airbnb is one of the most well-known companies that offer tourism services and activities. They have utilized AR features that permit customers to take a virtual resort tour before they even make the reservation. After viewing it in the 3D environment, customers can book the room of their choice.  

L’Oreal Paris has also applied an augmented reality feature on their website that displays various hairstyles and colors directly to the users. L’Oreal virtual makeup app allows users to view how makeup will look on their faces. The demand for AR-integrated websites is high and will continue to expand in the future of website development. This increasing demand has led to a surge in businesses looking to hire web developers who are proficient in AR and VR technologies.

3. Dark mode 

Turn to your phone or PC. Did you find your screen display and background dark? This is most commonly due to the dark mode. The ever-evolving trend reverses the screen’s colors, making the background dark and the text light. Web developers have dramatically adopted it because it offers excellent advantages and enhances the user experience. Some of the benefits of dark mode include:

(a) Long battery life

60% of the phone or laptop battery is consumed by the screen. The dark mode is a great way to expand your battery life as it consumes less power than the light mode. 

(b) Reduced eye strain

The dark mode is much easier on the eyes because it diminishes the amount of light emitted from the screen, thus reducing the eye strain. 

(c) Improved contrast

The dark mode results in an improved contrast of the screen as it makes the text more visible and readable. 

(d) Legibility 

Dark-mode user interfaces are usually easier to read since the text and other elements contrast well with the dark background.

4. Progressive web applications

A progressive web application (PWA) is a web application that focuses on employing a stack of certain technologies to provide a user experience that is equivalent to or the same as a native app. Such applications allow you to become network-independent and function well while offline. They are also very safe, mobile friendly, and offer adaptable designs.

Although progressive web applications are not the latest trend since they were introduced late in 2018, they’re definitely worth implementing as they provide a native-like experience for web apps. Unfortunately, building a progressive web app is quite expensive, but it’s expected to be implemented in the upcoming websites.

5. Motion UI

Motion UI refers to a library that lets web developers create animations with the help of simple CSS code. It basically makes the animation more efficient and easier to use. It also helps in making the development process faster and more proficient. Moreover, the increased flexibility of motion UI delivers seamless animations.  

6. Single-page applications

Single-page applications (SPAs) have many advantages that help quickly load your website. In typical web applications, you must reload the page with every click. But SPAs load faster as they only need to load the HTML page once. It also provides a seamless navigation experience since clicking on different links to navigate between pages is unnecessary.

Moreover, it reduces bandwidth usage as they do not require downloading additional files. In addition, the material Design Lite (MDL) library, released in 2018, enables developers to create SPAs using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

7. WebAssembly

A new standard that allows web developers to create quicker and more efficient online web applications is known as WebAssembly. It is a low-level language that allows porting code from different languages to a virtual machine. For example, developers can port their existing product, such as a physics engine, a game, an image editor, or a trading app, written in C/C++/Rust/Java/Kotlin/C# to a web app within a short period.

It can be run in web browsers, offering a near-native experience. Moreover, you can also use WebAssembly to expand the number of platforms your product is already available. WebAssembly is an excellent option for entrepreneurs who want to bring their old or outdated digital products to life with minimal investments.

8. Personalized content 

Personalization content strategy is an excellent website trend that displays content to the user base upon their preferences. Personalized content works on an artificial algorithm that analyzes user behavior. In addition, search behaviors, past history, wish list history, likes, dislikes, etc., can be obtained through AI.

So, whether it be a blog, video, or article, you can show your audience the most relevant content. Moreover, analysis assists in identifying user need and desires related to your product. 

Offering recommendations and suggestions according to users’ behavior can bring a lot of advantages to your business too. Customers can be lured by the new and exciting offers and recommendations, which will ultimately result in your website’s increased sales and ROI. 

Netflix is one the best examples that offers advanced personalization to its users. It shows recommendations of different shows, episodes, seasons, and much more to its users as per their choices.

9. Low-code development

With the rise of low-code development platforms, web developers can build applications faster and more efficiently by using drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-built components. This trend is expected to continue as more businesses look to streamline their development processes and reduce costs.

What Are the Top Mistakes In Web Development?

1. Unscalable architecture

One of the most common mistakes found in every small project is the poor scaling of the architecture. Yes, this technique helps deliver small apps faster, but once new requirements appear in the project, you’ll need to keep the architecture in a valid and working state. Duplicated code and hard-to-identify bugs will create many problems in the project. 

2. Non-responsive layout

Creating a non-responsive website is one of the mistakes found in web front-end development. Responsive web design is the process that uses only one layout for a web page and adjusts itself according to the available screen size. However, if you don’t cater to the mobile version requirements, it can negatively impact the user browsing your website on their smartphone. 

3. Not testing across multiple devices

When you’re done with the development phase, testing the website across different platforms is important. You need to perform cross-browser and cross-device testing to check whether your website is compatible with different browsers and devices. It helps in ensuring the compatibility of your website with different browsers.

4. No third-party libraries and frameworks

One of the mistakes made by web developers is not using third-party libraries and frameworks in the development process. Third-party libraries offer a great opportunity to integrate pre-tested, reusable software that saves development time and cost. It also helps in creating more efficient and reliable applications. Not utilizing third-party libraries and frameworks will give you inefficient and buggy applications.

5. Not Using a CSS Framework

CSS frameworks can help create websites compatible with multiple browsers and browser versions. The bugs that pop up during cross-browser testing can also be reduced with the help of the CSS framework. Moreover, it also allows developers to create faster and more convenient web applications. If developers don’t use the CSS framework, it can lead to incorrect or inconsistent formatting applications. 

6. Not using version control

The technique of tracking and managing changes to software code is known as version control. When developers don’t utilize version control in their website development, it can cause incorrect code in the website. Therefore, it is essential to avoid this mistake and ensure the accuracy and reliability of your application code.

7. Launching a website without testing

Testing is one of the fundamental phases of website development done by the QA team. Various types of testing are included in the testing phase, such as performance, usability, functional, user, etc. Thus, performing different testing to make your website fully functional and bug-free before the final launch is important.

8. Not utilizing a style guide

Before starting to design the website, it must follow the style guidelines. Style guidelines can help ensure proper formatting and design of your website. Not giving significant importance to style guides can lead to inconsistent and unformatted web design applications. 

9. Applications develop without use cases

The development of apps without use cases can result in applications that aren’t entirely functional. Use cases must be created to guarantee that all apps are fully functional.

10. Applications develop without documentation

Every developer must create documentation of their web projects to gain quick access to important files. Clear and easy-to-use documentation can help developers to find meaningful resources quickly. The main disadvantage of developing apps without documentation is difficult-to-understand and complex web applications.

What Are the Topmost Misconceptions of Web Development?

Until now, we’ve explored the top web development trends and mistakes made by web developers in website development. So let’s now have a look at some of the misconceptions that are most common among businesses. 

1. Web Development is costly & time-consuming:

One of the biggest misconceptions about website development is that creating a website is costly and time-consuming. It’s not always the case because now we can see many frameworks and tools available that reduce the development cost and save the developer time as well.

As developers don’t need to code every single line because frameworks include pre-built libraries and source code. Many businesses believe that it’s true and it prevents them from investing in it. Some of the best web development libraries are as follows:

• React. js  
• Angular 
• Rails 
• Vue.js
• JQuery
• Django 
• Express.js
• Laravel  

2. Only large businesses can develop websites:

The first step that any business, small or large, needs to do when they step into the market is to develop a website. Creating a website will be very beneficial as it can reach your business to a large target audience.

Secondly, it can help you make an online presence through which you can do branding and marketing for your business. Start with the essential website development, and then you can go towards building an extensive website as your business expands.

3. Only Tech-savvy people can create a website 

Another misconception revolving around web development is that only tech-savvy entrepreneurs or businessmen in the IT field can create a website for their business. It’s not true because many non-tech people are running their websites.

You just need to simply collaborate with a team of web developers who can create a website for you. After that, you can simply run your website as you know how to run a website and what strategy to follow to increase your business.

4. Web Development has become obsolete

You might have heard that website development is now outdated and old-fashioned. However, it’s a misconception that websites are no longer necessary for your business. The first and foremost step to building a strong online presence is to develop a website. Web development is continually evolving, and as per the guide, there are currently over 1.92 billion online websites.  

Final words 

So far, we’ve discovered the top 2023-2024 web development trends, mistakes, and misconceptions! Thus, we can conclude that the web development industry will expand and evolve in the upcoming years with much innovation and advancement.

We just need to keep our focus on the latest web development trends and the strategy followed by our competitors to make a competitive website. And do not forget to add unique features and functions to your website to attract more users.

Hiba Ali

Hiba is an accomplished specialist in writing for Software as a Service (SaaS) and has extensive experience crafting compelling and informative content. With over two years of experience, she has honed her skills in producing various forms of content, including articles, blog posts, and more, all centered around SaaS. Hiba is dedicated to sharing her insights to assist businesses in leveraging SaaS to achieve growth and success.