1. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
You might have experienced AMP pages already on your mobile devices. When you make a search on Google using your mobile device, few websites display this (⚡) symbol. These are nothing but the AMP websites and they load very fastly on mobile devices as compared to other websites.
Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open source initiative encouraged by Google which ensures quick loading of the web pages on mobile devices. The AMP project was announced by Google on Oct. 7, 2015, and later it was supported by Twitter, WordPress, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
The AMP web pages are built upon 3 components:
- AMP HTML: Is the refined version of the HTML made for the reliable performance of the web pages. Basically, few restrictions are applied to normal HTML code to display web page faster on mobile devices.
- AMP JS: It is the Javascript library which ensures faster rendering of the HTML web pages.
- AMP Cache: AMP cache is the service run by a proxy-based content delivery network for validated AMP documents published on the web. In simple words, these service providers keep a cache of the AMP pages to ensure fast loading of the web pages.
2. Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
The Progressive Web App technology combines the features offered by a website and mobile apps together. PWA eliminates the cross-platform difficulties faced by users while accessing the information.
PWA takes the best features offered by a website and converts them for mobile experiences. So when the users browse the website they cannot really differentiate if it is an app or a website.
So when a user browses a particular website enabled with PWA feature, he is prompted whether he would like to “Add to Home Screen”. Once the website is given permission and user launch this site from home screen, it starts to behave like a mobile app. It can even hide mobile browser controls to give it an app like experience.
The benefits of having PWA is that you can access the website in offline-mode, it offers app-like experience, offers improved performance, there is no need to install apps of your device and you don’t have to submit your apps to the app store.
3. Single-page website
One of the increasing trends in the web designing is single-page website layout. Not to mention as something new pop-ups, people start to follow it as long as it meets their purpose.
Single-page websites display entire content on their website using single HTML page. So when a user clicks on a navigation link, a web page gets scrolled down or page focus jumps to the particular section of the web page where information is being presented.
Single-page websites use JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax and CSS3 to bring this functionality to the single page design. There are pros and cons of using single-page layout for your blog, but still, it is being one the popular trend in web designing.
4. Website push notifications
Web push notifications can be sent from a website to user’s desktop or mobile app even if his/her web browser is not open. These notifications appear in the notification area of user’s device.
Though, the only users who are subscribed to this service from a particular website can receive these notifications. The benefit of website push notification is that the user doesn’t have to keep open his browser or be present on the website to stay updated on important announcements by the website.
5. Flash to HTML5
With the launch of HTML5, these limitations were eliminated. HTML5 offered most robust features where users don’t have to worry about the platform on which website content is being displayed. These websites can be easily tracked and analyzed for better user experience. The content can be easily enhanced without compromising on the security.
Because of these new features flash became outdated and HTML5 got whole new levels of popularity. In 2017, there are hardly sites that rely on flash based content. In the year 2018, these sites will completely be wiped out and HTML5 will be future of the web designing.
6. Multilingual websites
7. Augmented Reality (AR)
The AR technology is not that widely spread across the web, but many of the users must have experienced the technology by now. Pokémon Go was one of the apps developed by using AR technology.
The AR for the web is mostly untouched area and there are unlimited possibilities to try with this technology for web content. For eg. a web search to find restaurant, bank, school, hospitals, etc.
There are a couple of JavaScript libraries available to helps build the AR-based websites. This would be a really interesting place to see some cool AR stuff on the websites in the year 2018. Checkout WebAR for few AR based web projects.
8. Virtual Reality (VR)
Sounds confusing? Take an example of Pokémon game. This game uses AR to showcase Pokémon characters in the real world. A zombie game played using VR box where a zombie walks towards you to eat your flesh is an example of VR.
Imagine a map service or a conference presented with VR technology could be a really amazing experience. Just like AR, there various JavaScript API being developed to support this technology. You can watch this space for more development on VR technology.
9. Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI-based chat applications (what is called as chatbots) on the web have become popular in recent time. There would be no doubt that in future chatbots will be the first point of contact for any customer interaction on the website.
There are plenty of AI-based applications already deployed on the web to make the task easier. Google Assistant, Amazon Echo, Facebook Messenger, and Google Hangouts Messenger are few AI-based applications you might be acquainted with.
In the future various marketing, related activities will be carried by using AI-based web services. According to Gartner, 20% of the business content will come from AI in the year 2018.