Creating a great user experience is essential for any software in order to succeed in creating value. How the application feels and connects to the user might be the strongest selling point in many cases. Some products only focus on that point, and they achieve a smashing success.
However, creating such an experience is not often an easy thing to do. When the UX designer go around shaping every detail down to the button size, the developer seems to be on the other end of the world, unable to understand what the designer is aiming at. At the end of the day, there is the users who also have their own expectations and voices, and they have to be heard as well. So the development process doesn’t seem to be in sync at all. That’s why development tools should allow for the creation of a better UX, easier said than done. The set of tools we use to deploy and create UI components is what eventually defines the UX. Just like how different instruments in a band define the genre of the band. Let’s look at how Angular and PWA are taking the UX development to the next level.
Angular:
Angular is one of the earliest Javascript frameworks to emerge. It’s one of the most renowned JS frameworks and has got one of the largest communities in the world. This makes it a formidable framework to work with and invest in. Angular has got a lot to bring to the table. For starters, it has got a great development cycle, easy to use and test. Angular also leverages the power of features like two way data binding to create dynamic web apps. All while making the development process as clear and fluid as possible.
However, most JS frameworks were not developed with UX as a purpose, but it’s how developers work around the features to create the best user experience they can that make a great UX possible.
Among these features we mention:
- Essential components like overlays and navigation bars among a big set of other things creates a lot of options in building a rich UX.
- The 2-way data binding we talked about earlier is one of Angular’s strengths in creating a dynamic immersive UX.
- The binding of texting property to UI can be seamlessly integrated with Angular.
- Parallel development is possible with Angular. This allows the application to be on equal levels of maturity across different platforms.
It’s worth mentioning that Material 2 encapsulates Material Design for angular. Material 2 includes 4 pre-built themes and has got a lot to offer in terms of creating new themes. You can find programming community recommended Angular tutorials and courses on the internet as the need to learn the framework is increasing drastically.
As for workflow design, Angular offers guidance in creating a user experience from the bottom up.
If we cast some light upon the applications and browsers popularity, we’ll find out more about the current UX standings. Many statistics indicate that throughout the past years, apps reigned more than 80% of the overall mobile usage, while browsers usage hovered in the low portions.
The thing about apps vs traditional browsers is that apps create special experiences for the users, they just meet the user needs most.
Though, web apps seem to be gaining popularity recently, thanks to progressive web applications or (PWA).
The PWA era:
Progressive web apps are the new generation of web apps. They are the adaptation of native apps for the web. As Google defines it, a PWA is supposed to be:
- Reliable: a PWA should be able to load efficiently and quickly, even if the connection isn’t good enough, or there’s none at all.
- Fast: PWA should be smooth and perform transactions quickly. The high interactivity in a PWA is the major factor to create a rich user experience.
- Engaging: a PWA should be engaging enough to hook the user up and create an immersive experience.
They should also be responsive and quickly adapt to your device’s shape and gadget, or else there’s no point in having a great application if it can’t reach out to all potential users out there. They should be easily accessible as well. It’s found that every step separating the first moment of contact with the first time of usage could actually send the user away. If a certain app takes 20 steps for installment, then no one will ever use it regardless of how great it is. It’s basically leveraging the web high performance and low friction along with the UX stickiness of applications which really creates the best selling point to have.
Developing a PWA:
There are a lot of things to keep in mind while developing a PWA. You’re developing to keep an edge over all other applications. At the same time, you want your application to serve the biggest number of different users. PWA application can reach people everywhere, functions on slow connections which is the case for many people around the world in developing or underdeveloped countries.
First of all, there are a few points to be aware of. A PWA should avoid applications mistakes. These things range from unresponsive clicks/touches, glitchy scrolls or unpredictable behavior all at once. Such things not only give a bad impression, but also create feelings of resentment toward the application. Such errors could result in revenue loss as well. We also mentioned earlier that they should function properly on slow internet connections, nothing is more dreaded that the blocked transaction screen when your connection wavers.
Secondly, we are talking about importing the native feelings from native apps. This can only be done by using material design components that are both modular and customizable. There’s also the Polymer library that helps to create custom reusable HTML elements.
Final Thoughts:
It seems like user experiences are going to get even richer and more immersive than before. The development tools are becoming more versatile and robust than before, which means developers could focus less on finding bugs or striving to create a certain feature and focus more on innovation in the application. This doesn’t mean that it will be done effortlessly, yet fairly easier than before.
We could also be witnessing a new era in the web where everyone converts to PWA. You can find a rich list of PWA on PWARocks.
PWA and Angular will certainly boost UX, and every slight change in the tech industry might tip the scale at a certain point, so we can’t really tell how far PWA will go. Surely though, they will keep on gaining popularity as people can’t just stop falling in love with them
Guest article written by: Saurabh has worked globally for telecom and finance giants in various capacities. After working for a decade in Infosys and Sapient, he started his first startup, Lenro, to solve the hyperlocal book-sharing problem. He is interested in product, marketing, and analytics. His latest venture Hackr.io recommends the best online programming courses and tutorials for every programming language. All the tutorials are submitted and voted by the programming community.